


SHSL 77-B Class Tutor

by piecasportsanimetrash



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair, Fluff, Humor, M/M, basically everyone in sdr2, i wrote this on the train, shit plot, there is no angst in this fic i swear, this was honestly intended to be a one shot but i got carried away
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 02:31:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8603740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecasportsanimetrash/pseuds/piecasportsanimetrash
Summary: Komaeda is bad at Biology and Hinata is bad at not being salty.AU where Hope's Peak had a dorm.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt in writing an english danganronpa fic so it might be terribly OOC and the plot is really shiT?? i literally thought and wrote the whole thing in two hours lmao

 

Sometimes Hinata though that living in a dorm wasn't so bad after all. For instance, he got to trespass the main course common room and play video games with Nanami on the couch until sunrise and nobody would really give a shit. Nobody would ever give a shit about what the main course students do, according to her.

But sometimes living in the dorm of Hope's Peak Academy could be as bad as it could be.

Just last night when he was taking a shower in the common bathroom, the water turned ice cold within seconds once this white haired guy from the main course came in and turned on the tab in an ice cold November night. This resulted in Hinata running back to his room on the fourth floor with wet hair stained with unwashed shampoo and ending up with a cold the next morning.

That was also the reason why he went to school that day with a running nose and swollen eyes.

“Whoa!” Mioda exclaimed, as dramatic as ever when she ran into Hinata early in the morning, both on the way of being late to class. “You okay?”

“Yeah, it's just a cold,” Hinata said dismissively, his voice muffled behind the face mask. His eyes were itching with redness, too.

“You look like you need a hundred hours of sleep,” Mioda commented.

“And in fact I do.”

She waved at him goodbye when they arrived at the main course building. Hinata waved back and tried to return a smile but remembered that nobody could see his face with a mask on.

The reserve course building was about fifty feet away, Hinata picked up his pace and glanced at his phone. He was already ten minutes late but as long as he kept his sickly face on he would probably be excused.

And there went another boring day in the reserve course classroom. He sat in his chair, twirling his pencil unconsciously and shifting his hands from left to right under his chin, listening to the fixed curriculum content which he had already studied a long time ago. One of the biggest reasons he was given full exception for the crazy expensive tuition fee was because of his grades and solely because of his grades. Even if Hope's Peak Academy was already a respectable education institution, from time to time they still needed actual smart kids in the reserve course to pull the average GPA up in national exams.

Hinata yawned with his mask as a shield and looked out of the window, at the main course building right across the street. Once he thought that he would give anything just to set foot in that building, just for once, just for the feeling of being actually special or talented. But after studying here for a year he kind of just...gave up. Reluctantly and gradually he accepted the fact that being a talentless scrub wasn't so bad after all. He could still be a creditable office worker, a salary man, an assistant for starters, with the graduation certificate granted by Hope's Peak he could even have the chance of being hired by some prosperous company, just like the wish of every single average student across the nation.

It was pathetic and sad sometimes, to think like this, like an average person. But he himself was just as average as every student sitting in this classroom with him, listening to a modern literature lecture.

Being good at school stuff never meant that he liked school. At all. Sometimes he wished that he could just drop out and go travel the world, or something. But reality never worked in his way so far.

He knew that he shouldn’t be so bitter about everything all the time, but honestly he just couldn't help it especially under this kind of circumstances, with approaching exams and a gloomy winter weather.

The bell rang and almost everyone ran out of the room for lunch in the cafeteria with very limited space. Hinata never bothered to make much friends here because of their equally decadent and dejected attitude, which made him feel even more decadent and dejected about being in the reserve course. He ate lunch alone, sometimes in the courtyard with Nanami if she was willing to carry her gaming ass downstairs to meet him.

“…a main course student?” he heard inaudible whispering coming from the entrance of the classroom. A group of girls who always hung out around the back were pointing at someone in the front door. Hinata couldn't make out who they were, and only caught a glimpse of the perfectly brown shade of the main course uniform jacket. He turned his head and tried to see who was it.

“Dude, Hinata! Over here!” he heard a familiar voice calling out his name. He stood up from his seat, and saw a mob of sharp pink hair who could only belong to one person he knew.

“Souda?” he said, walking towards the entrance curiously. “What are you doing here?”

“Man, you gotta help me out,’ Souda said nervously, glancing around the classroom and lowering his voice, as if scared of being overheard, which was almost an impossible task because literally everyone in the room was staring at him, a main course intruder who had somehow bothered to make his way to the reserve course building.

“What is it?” Hinata asked.

“It’s Chemistry,” Souda replied abruptly.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Chemistry, dude, I don’t know shit about it.”

It took almost ten seconds for Hinata to comprehend what the other was talking about. “You mean Chemistry…as in the subject? Not the thing that doesn't exist between you and Sonia?”

“Yes, Hinata, as in the subject!” Souda said in a matter-of-fact tone. “And stop ripping me off, man!”

“What does Chemistry have to do with you, though?” Hinata frowned. As a main course student, Souda literally did not have to participate in any academic learning which was unrelated to his talent as a mechanic. Hell, they didn't even need to sit the December mock test like everyone else had to.

“Look, let’s get outta here first and I’ll explain to you, alright?”

Souda didn’t even give Hinata a chance to refuse because he already started to drag him across the hallway, down the stairs, and over the courtyard where nobody was around except for sweaty basketball players who were too into their game to care.

Hinata watched in absolute confusion as Souda pulled out a notice of some sort with the Hope’s Peak seal on it, and shoved it under his nose for him to read.

 

**_Main course students,_ **

 

**_After reconsidering the Hope’s Peak Academy curriculum and policies, the school board has decided that starting from the 77th class, all main course students must participate in the same exams as the reserve course students and be examined on the twelve core subjects taught in the reserve course syllabus. While maintaining talents remains your utmost responsibility as a student in Hope’s Peak Academy, common knowledge and general education is also a crucial part throughout a student’s learning experience._ **

**_Please note that a 50% pass result is mandatory, otherwise expulsion will be considered._ **

 

**_Best regards,_ **

**_Jin Kirigiri_ **

**_Headmaster_ **

 

The notice was crumbled and slightly torn, meaning that Souda had completely forgotten about it until this morning, probably having to discover the paper stuck in the bottom of his bag while he was cleaning it out.

“Um,” Hinata said. “So?”

“ _SO_?” Souda repeated. “I am going to be expelled right after March!”

“You can’t know for sure.”

“Hinata, look at me, I mean - look at me, do you really think I could pass the reserve course exam? The _batshit insane_ reserve course exam?”

Hinata looked at Souda as he were told. This guy spent half of his time dissolving metal in the lab and half the time stalking Sonia Nevermind, so the genuine answer was ‘no’, he did not think for a second that Souda could pass the reserve course exam. As a matter of fact, only a handful of the carefully screened and selected reserve course student could ace every single final exam conducted in March.

But as straightforward as he was, he couldn't possibly say that out loud.

“But I thought you were a mechanic? Aren’t mechanics supposed to be good at science stuff?” Hinata asked, diverting the topic.

“Well, yeah, I am, but I’m not good at the exam-science-stuff!” Souda said agitatedly. “Same thing as knowing how to speak Japanese but flunking Japanese literature big time!”

He had a point there. Hinata sighed and closed his eyes, knowing exactly what Souda had come to see him for.

“You’re asking for me to tutor you, right?” he took a not-so-wild guess. Souda’s eyes lightened up immediately.

“Come on, dude, you’re like my one and only soul friend in this god-forsaken place. I will be dead without your help,” Souda pleaded, his hands clasping together and for a moment Hinata really thought he would really burst into tears. “Plus I’ll look really bad in front of Sonia if I failed a science subject and get expelled because of it! Please!”

Souda also lived in the Hope’s Peak dorm, which was the only place where reserve course students and main course students were in any way integrated. Actually, Hinata only befriended him because they were the only two people who didn't go home for New Year, and he had helped Souda launch the first drone he had built from scratch, which ended up crashing into a frozen lake in the nearest park after 15 minutes of flying

“Alright,” Hinata finally found himself saying. “Alright, fine, I’ll tutor you if I have the time to.”

“Sick!” Souda slapped his back, really harshly, and made him wince at the sudden pain. “I knew I could count on you!”

Hinata decided that he should probably stop acting like a push-over because he had been overwhelmed with various favours lately.

 

***

 

“Hinata-kun, you know I can’t unlock the secret boss level if I don’t win first place in two-player mode,” Nanami told him persistently in the library in a whisper for the twelfth time. They were supposed to be reading in silence but rules were inapplicable to Nanami when it came down to beating new video games with sheer determination. On top of that, it was after school time and they were the only ones left in the entire building. The air conditioning was too cold like a cinema and it was freezing Hinata’s hands off.

“I have two essays due and four tests next week,” Hinata whispered back, which was louder than a whisper because he was still wearing a face mask, his fingers working away on the keyboard swiftly while Nanami looked at him in disappointment. “Sorry, but no.”

“Okay,” she huffed, shutting down the power of her game console and stuffing it back into her pink backpack. Hinata left his in his dorm room, knowing that Nanami would just start playing on both consoles at the same time if given a chance, leaving him with an unbeatable high score record. “You can’t run from this forever.”

“Shouldn’t you be studying as well?” Hinata said off-handedly, his eyes still fixed firmly on the screen.

“Huh?” she tilted her had as if she had never heard the word ‘studying’ in her life, ever.

“You know, reading a textbook, reciting definitions, or something,” Hinata said. “Studying.”

“…Oh, right,” she said slowly, eyes widening in realisation. “Studying.”

“Right.”

“I don’t like to do that often,” she frowned slightly, brushing away the stray hair tickling her cheeks. “It’s like an unbeatable Mario Maker level.”

Hinata chuckled under his breath.

“Thank you,” Nanami said.

“Souda told me about the main course exam thing,” he told her, finally tearing his sight off the bright laptop screen. “Are you fine with it?”

‘Yeah, why not,” she replied. “I know Newton’s three laws of motions.”

“And?”

“…I also know that the largest bubblegum bubble ever blown was 20 inches in diameter, I think.”  
“Wait, really?”  
“Apparently.”

“What about trigonometry. That’s, like, twenty percent of Maths.”

“Nope.” She gave him a mere shrug, which meant  _don’t know, don’t care_.

“All I’m saying is you should probably tag along with Souda when I tutor him,” Hinata offered, bewildered by the fact that Nanami really seemed like she couldn't care less even if she got expelled. On the other hand, he would feel terrible if his one closest friend in school got kicked out just because she failed trigonometry. 

“You’re tutoring Souda-kun?”

“He was one step away from kneeling down and begging me to.”

“I can imagine,” she said thoughtfully. “I think I wouldn’t mind to be expelled. I’d rather play an actual unbeatable Mario Marker level than reading your maths textbook.”

_Touché_ , Hinata thought.

He spent the next hour or so finishing up his literature essay, while Nanami started playing this dumb, battery and storage-space consuming dating sim on her phone, half-heartedly flipping through Hinata’s core textbooks which he insisted to be the paramount key to graduation.

“Do you _really_ don’t mind being expelled, though?” Hinata asked her again on the way back to the dorm house. She was silent the whole time, so she must be thinking of something far-reaching.

“No, I don’t think so,” she answered softly, adjusting the straps on her bag. “I like it here.”

“Plus I’m probably the only person you could find on this planet who is willing to stay up with you until 4am for a Steam game release,” Hinata said jokingly, but it was also a fact.

“Come now, you were just as excited as I was,” Nanami retorted, giving him a rare smile.

“Not as half as - ouch!”

Hinata immediately stepped aside when he felt himself bumping into someone rigidly in the dimly-lit cobbled street, too focused on talking with Nanami and too deprived of sleep to notice anything else. The person whom he had accidentally attacked rubbed their head in misery.

“Are you okay?” Hinata asked carefully.  
“I’m quite alright.” The person spoke with a low, throaty voice. Hinata couldn't really see what they looked like in the dark, but he could see a mass of messy white hair under the street light.

“Hello, Komaeda-kun,” Nanami greeted him politely. Hinata could see the same shade of brown on him as he did on Nanami, except that he wore a knitted sweater on top of his shirt.

_Oh._

“Nanami-san,” the white haired guy from the main course grinned at her. Hinata tucked at his mask uncomfortably. This guy was the hot-water stealing culprit who caused him to catch a terrible cold.

Hinata became totally unapologetic towards crashing into him from that point onwards.

“Isn’t it near curfew time already?” Nanami asked him.

“It is,” Komaeda agreed. “I just wanted to take a walk, that’s all.”

“Oh,” she said. “See you later then.”

“Good evening.”

Without another word, Komaeda walked pass them on the trail and disappeared through the corridor which led back to the campus. Hinata felt a chill run down his spine, and it definitely wasn’t from the cold night air.

“Who is he?” he asked Nanami.

“Just one of my classmates, Nagito Komaeda,” Nanami replied. “He doesn’t talk much. Not with me, at least.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” And it didn’t seem that Nanami had much to talk about him, either, because she fell into silence again.

Hinata had heard of him. The Ultimate Lucky Student, the one and only, lottery drawn luckster who was admitted into the Academy with the literal talent of luck. He hated to admit that he had once dreamt of being that one lucky high schooler whose name got picked within tens of thousands, and could proudly put on the shiny brown uniform and identify himself as a main course student. 

But as the story unfolded before his eyes, he knew that he had no luck to be pushed.

“Hinata-kun, are you feeling okay?”

Hinata jolted, his mind pulled back into the reality while Nanami looked at him with concern.

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “I’m okay, just tired.”

“Sleep earlier tonight,” she told him. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight.”

She patted his arm affectionately, and headed towards the girls’ side of the dorm room in the opposite direction. Hinata watched her back as she left, wondering what would it take to acquire the same level of optimism as she had.

 

***

 

Souda slammed his pen on Hinata’s desk for one last time before Hinata felt that his temper was ticking off like a time bomb. He would be surprised if a crack hadn’t already appeared on the wooden material in his dorm room after being abused severely with stationary.

“I can’t do this,” Souda said, burying his face into his palms. “I can’t, it’s impossible, I can’t -”

“Stop whining and just get to it,” Hinata ordered sternly. A throbbing headache was building at the back of his brain and he was at the edge of dozing off. “Look. Plot an X here, and another here, and -” he grabbed the ruler and drew a line harshly across the graph, nearly piecing the thin paper with his might. “There, you have the Lorenz curve.”

“I still don’t get it!”

At this point Hinata couldn't tell whether if he was a bad tutor or Souda was just plain stupid, which couldn't be the case because he could build amazing remote control race cars which could go as fast as a motorbike. They were all just smart in certain aspects, Hinata reckoned. Just like how Nanami was good at technical strategies and logical thinking but could not add ten to twenty.

“Okay,” Hinata said calmly. “I think we should just call it a -”

“Oh, my, what a lovely sight of academic exertion and passion!”

Hinata raised his head wearily to see who had joined them at the dead of the night to study fucking Economics. It was Sonia. She was still wearing a big smile and her ironed uniform. She was probably the only student on campus who wore ironed uniform everyday. The other person standing beside her was no other than Nanami, her head lowered and concentrated on a game in her hands.

Souda, on the other hand, froze on the opposite side of the table at the sight of his not-a-secret crush.

“How did you get into the boys’ dorm?” Hinata asked, rubbing his eyes. “Again?”

“The guard ran off,” Nanami replied casually, making herself comfortable on Hinata’s unmade bed. “Again. And you forgot to lock your door, again.”

“They really should hire better securities, should they not?” Sonia remarked, shaking her head in dismay.

“Yes, Sonia-san, definitely, I couldn’t agree more,” Souda panted. Hinata rolled his eyes mentally at his friend’s irrational thirstiness.

“So, anyway,” Hinata said, eyeing at the two girls who looked like they were ready to go on a picnic trip in the dark. “What brings you two here?”

“Nanami-san told me that you are offering to tutor us main course students, is that right, Hinata-san? That is so kind and considerate of you, I truly admire such a good-hearted act,” Sonia beamed at him, like he was doing something so honourable that deserved to be granted knighthood. Souda looked like he as about to murder his temporary tutor in his own room.

“Yeah, I guess I am, but so far only for Nanami and Souda,” Hinata replied.

“Would you mind if I intrude your study group some time? I would love to see the studying culture between peers in a foreign land! How admirable and exciting!”

Hinata wanted to remind Sonia that ‘studying’ in Hope’s Peak Academy mainly consisted of only tears and curse words and mugs of coffee on the table, which would most likely be spilt at one point and lead to more tears and curse words. But she seemed genuinely interested, and Hinata guessed that she might need some help with passing the reserve course exam; even as a princess she had to memorise the list of emperors of Japan from 600 BC.

“Sure,” he said. Her smile grew even wider.

“Splendid. I shall offer you my utmost gratitude!” Sonia gracefully spread her arm out in a dramatical manner, and Hinata had to resist the urge to bow down before her.

And that was that.

 

 

***

 

One week later Hinata found his dorm room to be crowded with main course kids from the 77-B class after curfew time, with barely enough space to walk or even breathe. He knew most of their names, but were only close with a handful such as Nanami and Souda. Most of them knew Hinata, too, because there were only that many reserve course students who could afford both the tuition and the lodging fees of Hope’s Peak.

Saionji joined their group shortly after Koizumi found her crying in the girls’ bathroom with torn physics papers all over the ground. Sonia dragged Tanaka along which made Souda extremely upset but it couldn't be helped (“You could have at least tried to stop him from coming here, you know,” he told Hinata angrily). Nidai and Owari decided that the only course they would ever going to pass with ease was P.E., and stayed after promising Hinata that they weren’t going to wreck his room yet again with another wrestling contest.

With 15 noisy-as-fuck main course students in his room, it was getting more difficult to keep this whole tutoring thing down and out of sight of any school officials.

“I still can’t believe they are making us study all these in six months, you know?” Koizumi sighed dispiritedly, looking longingly at her camera. “I mean, we didn’t have to do it last year, so why now?”

“It doesn’t hurt to get some common sense out of school, I guess,” Hinata told her, and earned himself a glare.

It was only after these few days had he realised how little the main course students knew aside from their talent. They didn’t know what glucose was (except for Tsumiki, of course), they didn't know how photosynthesis worked, they didn’t know how to expand function notations. Getting them to pass the reserve course exams was bound to be harder than hiking up the Himalayas.

It never came across his mind that there was always one person missing from the study group.

When the clock stroke 5 in the morning Hinata was woken up by loud rock music coming from the speaker of his phone. He accidentally set his alarm clock two hours earlier than intended, god knew how that happen. Such bad luck on a Monday morning.

He got up and brushed his teeth, washed his face and dripped eye-drops into his blood-shotted eyes. The main course finally left him alone at one in the morning with a satisfactory amount of practical knowledge acquired from him.

Since he had nothing better to do, he decided to do something that he would never choose to do in a chilly winter morning with a clear mind; go jogging in the courtyard.

He changed into trousers and a sweat shirt, opened his unlocked door and walked downstairs. The sun had not even risen yet and the streets and buildings were still drenched in pitch dark. A glimpse of moonlight shone across the path leading to Hope’s Peak but Hinata wasn’t heading back to school, the one place he was trying to get away from at all costs. He decided the local park was a good place to go, so he took a left turn and started running to the next block.

The city was especially tranquil when it was not at its usual state. Without the crowdedness, noisiness, cars and vehicles rushing along the roads, people yelling, music bustling on full volume. Hinata closed his eyes for a moment, imagining that he was completely alone in this city. Unbothered and isolated. The air was still cold and Hinata could see the white mist coming out of his mouth as he let out a deep breath.

It took him a little over ten minutes to run from the dorm to the park nearby, where he met Nanami for the first time a little over a year ago by the water fountain. He stretched his arms and walked slowly along the narrow sidewalk, enjoying the last moments of the peaceful nights as dawn began to arise through the clouds.

At first he thought that the lights were playing tricks on his tired eyes, although he was standing in the midst of a fog, Hinata could tell that someone was standing dangerously close to the lake, with barely half a feet between the water and their legs.

The first instinct that came to his mind was exactly what he did next.

“Hey!” he yelled at the stranger, running towards the lake in case he was about to witness something tragic. Even if something really did happen, he did kind of know how to swim.

Except that it wasn’t a stranger at all. It was _just_ Nagito Komaeda.

“Oh, hi,” Komaeda said, turning to him and smiling. “I didn’t expect to see anyone on the streets at this hour.”

Hinata almost froze on spot when he heard the familiar raspy voice. “You’re…Nagito Komaeda?”

“You remember my name,” Komaeda said, as if it was something astonishing.

“Of course I do,” Hinata said. He decided on spot that, fuck it, if he was meant to befriend everyone from class 77-B, might as well get to know this weird, distant guy who separated himself from the rest of his classmates, whom he somehow managed to bump into at this time and place. Maybe he needed help with exams just like the rest, anyway. He offered his outstretched hand to Nagito Komaeda, and said, “I’m Hajime Hinata, by the way.”

Komaeda hesitated for a moment before shaking his hand. “I know. Nanami-san speaks very fondly of you.”

“Really,” Hinata said. “From the way she talks about you, I thought she wasn’t that close with you.”

He immediately regretted saying that. His bluntness of words without proper composition easily offend people sometimes.

“You’re right.” To his surprise, Komaeda only smiled weakly at him. “I’m not close with anyone at all, truth to be told.”

Hinata tried not to huff in disbelief. After taking off his face mask and treating his swollen eyes, he could see Komaeda better, and he was…pretty. There was no other way to put it. He was a pretty person with extra fluffy hair and green eyes mixed with a strange tint of greyness.

Basically he looked like someone who could bring just about anyone on his shore if he made the effort. But clearly he didn’t, and probably did the opposite of that, therefore nobody wanted to be on his shore, and walked right around it just to avoid talking to him.

Hinata thought that he must had gotten at least a little bit crazy after all those sleepless nights.

“Well, me too,” he ended up saying.

“You’re quite close with Nanami-san,” Komaeda argued.

“Yeah, but she’s…different,” Hinata said.

Komaeda didn’t say anything.

“Okay, uh,” Hinata found himself in a really bad case of stuttering. “I gotta head back. You know, school.”

“Right.”

“I’ll see you…sometime?”

Komaeda seemed quite surprised by his statement, but he only said, “Right” again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit chapter

“Souda, can I ask you something?”

Hinata rarely interrupted anyone’s study session while they were having their study group, so it wasn’t abnormal for Souda to be fully taken aback by Hinata’s question.

“Don’t tell me, are you gonna ask me for dating advice?” Souda asked, smiling wickedly.

“Um, no?” Hinata replied.

“Oh,” Souda said, seemingly disappointed for some reason. “What is it then, dude?”

“Why does nobody ever talk to Komaeda?” Hinata asked directly. He hated beating around the bush, so he just threw the question on the open table.

The awkward silence lingered for a couple of seconds while everyone paused their movements and looked at Hinata, like they were kids caught red-handed copying homework by their homeroom teacher.

“Because,” Souda started, searching for words. “He never talks to us? Like, ever?”

“He never joined in class activities,” Kuzuryuu added.

“He hardly ever goes to class.”

“He is weird as hell and I hate him.”

“He got suspended for six months for blowing up the main course gym!”

“That is not true, Hinata. Mioda, please keep your wild imaginations to yourself.”

“Hey, that makes a really good title for my next song!”

While Mioda was busy scribbling down the lyrics for her apparent new song ‘He got suspended for six months for blowing up the main course gym’, Hinata was overwhelmed by answers which he wouldn't know for sure if they were of blatant accuracy or not.

Nanami remained quiet while sitting beside him, but something told him that maybe she knew more than just that. Just maybe.

Hinata went to school that day with a serious case of sleep deprivation. He had been having trouble sleeping lately, but still not as serious as insomnia. He would lie on his bed and stare and the ceiling and couldn't help but feel that something was missing, but just like a 500-piece puzzle with one missing chunk, he just couldn't figure it out what it was and why it was bothering him so much.

Nanami had caught his cold after unsuspiciously drinking his coffee right from the same mug, so that meant he would have to be alone for lunch and for his after school library sessions.

It was raining on the way to the library and Hinata didn’t bring an umbrella. For the first few minutes it was alright because the rain was just as thin as sliced ham bought from dollar stores. But once he stepped out of the reserve course building, it starts pouring as if the clouds were dumping a waterfall on earth. He ran as fast as he could without the risk of falling flat on his face.

To his utter dread, the rain immediately stopped once he had entered the library, panting with heavy breaths after three minutes of dashing in the cold. He tried to dry himself off with an environmental-unfriendly amount of tissue paper from the bathroom and shoving his head underneath the dryer, at the same time making a mental note to thank his mom for buying him a waterproof bag last semester.

The library wasn’t empty this time around. About ten reserve course students scattered across the first floor in between the humanities and history bookshelves, all too focused on their work to even notice Hinata’s distress in wet clothing, which was a big relief. He quietly walked up the stairs and straight to Nanami and his usual spot behind the computer room.

But someone else was already sitting there. And that someone being Nagito Komaeda. He could tell it was him thirty feet away with that white hair and thin shoulders.

Here’s my chance, Hinata thought to himself. Maybe he wasn’t as difficult to get along with as everyone else had said.

“Hi,” he said, pulling out the chair in front of Komaeda and sitting down in front of him.

Komaeda looked up from his novel, his face looked alarm, but softened after he saw that it was only Hinata. “Hi,” he replied, with his usual polite smile.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” Hinata asked, and realised that maybe it was a little bit too late to request that since he was already sitting down with his bag under the chair and damp jacket hung over the back of the seat.

“Of course.”

Komaeda didn’t seem interested to drag on the small talk, because he buried his face into the pages once Hinata settled down and was looking as uncomfortable as he could ever be.

“I…uh, never saw you around here,” Hinata said and immediately wanted to fucking stand up and leave the library and probably leave this planet while he was at it because he never intended this to come out like a really bad pick up line.

“I don’t suppose so, this is the reserve course library, after all,” Komaeda said, unaware of Hinata’s flustered expression.

He was right, and Hinata felt his face burning in even more embarrassment. Usually with his bluntness and unpreserved words, he could easily make fast friends with almost any kind of people. But somehow Komaeda had the power to make him forget everything he wanted to say and even forgetting to look at him in the eyes.

“You can come over sometimes, you know, to our study group,” Hinata asserted with his normal voice volume. A nearby librarian gave him a condemning stare but he couldn't care less. “You know where my room is.”

Okay fuck, this was sounding more and more like some kind of unsolicited sexual offer.

“Thank you, but I think I’ll pass,” Komaeda replied without missing a beat.

“It’s fun,” Hinata tried again. “I mean, it’s noisy as hell, but it’s fun.”

“But why, Hinata-kun?” Hinata started at his name being called the first time by the other. “Why would you even bother to invite me? I am sure you know none of my classmates would want me around.”

“You’re wrong,” Hinata told him firmly. “They just don’t know you, yet.”

_And neither do I._

People always tend to push away things that they couldn’t understand, same with advanced Maths and music theories. But Hinata somehow did not have that tendency. On the contrary, the more he couldn't understand something, the more he wanted to get to the roots.

He wanted to understand Komaeda, the white hair main course guy, for whatever reasons.

“Thank you for your concern,” Komaeda finally said after a long pause. “But I am not your friend, especially not with a reserve course student like yourself, Hinata-kun.”

And just with that after leaving Hinata dumbfounded, Komaeda stood up and left before Hinata had the chance to do anything to stop him.

 

***

 

Hinata had noticed that more and more weird and unexplainable things were happening to him lately. The alarm clock set in his phone kept going off either much later or earlier everyday, forcing him to be either late to class or do morning jogs. And because of that he started bumping into Komaeda more and more often, catching him wandering around the park or the school campus with no intentions of going to class. But Komaeda always saw him from afar first and walked the other way, making it impossible for Hinata to go near enough to interact with him.

Although his alarm clock didn't fuck him over this morning, the toaster in the common kitchen sure did. The bread came out of the slots with the stinging smell of burning coal even if he had switched the machine onto ‘light’ mode. Hinata sighed and threw them in the trash, deciding that buying food from the cafeteria would be a much safer choice.

And he needed to buy an actual clock which would wake him up on time, and should probably get Souda to have his phone and the toaster checked properly.

He had a bit of spare time so he went back to his room to charge his game console as he promised to finally get to the secret boss level with Nanami as she insisted. 

When he reopened his door with his bag swung over his shoulder, _boom_ , Nagito Komaeda was just passing through the hallway right in front of him.

Finally some good luck had crossed his path.

Instead of calling out his name, which would not work for sure, Hinata grabbed his wrist out of pure, unchecked instinct and refused to let go until Komaeda turned to look at him.

_Oh my god_ , Hinata thought.

“…Yes?” Komaeda said.

“I want to be your friend,” Hinata said rather loudly, and made Komaeda flinch at his voice, his hair bouncing off his shoulders.

“Ah, I see,” Komaeda replied, the corner of his mouth twitching to form a half-simper. “You pity me.”

“I don’t,” Hinata said.

“You do,” Komaeda asserted. “That could be the only reason for you to approach me, even if I use harsh words to drive you away.”

“Maybe, but that’s not it.”

The situation was getting a bit ridiculous. With Hinata’s fingers still wrapped around Komaeda’s wrist, he could feel the other’s pulse in his veins, beating in sync with his own. A strange, sweltering sensation was spreading across his body from where they touched, and Hinata felt the same chill running down his spine as the first time he had seen Komeda properly.

“Hey, Hinata, good morni-” 

Over Komaeda’s shoulders, Hinata could see Souda gaping at the sight of the two standing in the hallway, engaging in some sort of hand-holding activity.

“Hey, Souda,” Hinata said warily. Komaeda took the chance and pulled his hand away.

“I should go now, Hinata-kun,” he said, keep walking forward and Hinata could see Souda visibly tense up when he walked pass him.

For a moment Hinata wanted to follow after him.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Souda ran up to Hinata once he made sure Komaeda was out of hearing range. “What…the fuck?”

“What?” Hinata said defensively.

“Did you hold his hand?”

“It was his wrist. I just wanted to talk to him.”

“Oh fuck,” Souda mumbled, pacing back and forth in the hallway aimlessly. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck - ”

“What are you on about?” Hinata had already lost half of his patience and was waiting for some kind of explanation.

“No one has ever made it as far as touching him,” Souda said. “You should probably stay in your room today, dude, I don’t want you to be run over by a car or somethin’ on the way to school.”

Hinata was in a state of turmoil when Souda pushed him back into his room, made him sit down beside his desk and took out his phone from his back pocket. “Never thought I would result to this but…I’m calling Tanaka in, gimme a second.”

“Remind me, what does this have to do with Takana?” Hinata asked agitatedly.

“We might need him to perform exorcism on you.”

“…What?”

“Trust me, dude, you need it.”

Approximately three minutes later Tanaka showed up. But instead of knocking on the door like a normal person would, he kicked it open and scared the shit out of the two of them.

“ ** _Who is the pathetic human in need of I, the god of darkness, the saviour of Valhalla!?_** ” Tanaka raised his voice so suddenly that Hinata nearly fell off his chair. He threw his dark purple scarf across the room which kind of reminded Hinata of Sonia Nevermind.

“Him,” Souda pointed at Hinata’s forehead, while the Four Dark Devas of Destruction jumped on his lap as Tanaka pulled out another chair to sit down in front of him.

“Have you been in contact with _infelicitas_ by any means?” Tanaka demanded and Hinata just stared blankly at him.

“Huh?”

“He means ‘bad luck’,” Souda translated for him helpfully.

“I should have conjectured,” Tanaka snarled, the hamsters running back onto his arms as Hinata shifted in his seat awkwardly. “You are too impuissant as a mere mortal, you could not resist the temptation of power and endowment. You have flown too close to the sun.”

“Okay?” Hinata said.

“I can foresee the infelicitas running through your veins,” Takana continued, starting into Hinata’s eyes with his fake heterochromic eyes which he insisted is real but everyone knew he put in fresh contact lenses every morning. “Keep your distance and you shall be salvaged.”

“I don’t -”

Tanaka simply let out a series of howling laughter and left his room, his hamsters following right behind him.

Hinata wondered every single day why he was even friends with these people in the first place.

“Alright,” he turned to Souda with his eyebrows raised. “Care to explain now?”

“We didn’t tell you about it,” Souda muttered almost guiltily. “Not even Nanami. Because we all knew that you would want to do something about it once you knew what was going on in our class.”

“If that’s all you gotta say, I’m almost late for school,” Hinata said, standing up and grabbing his abandoned bag form the carpet. He had dealt with craziness before and he was sure he would then, but this was just downright ridiculous. He had no interest in why 77-B would collectively help a classmate isolate himself because of ‘infelicitas’, whatever the fuck it was.

Souda stood up and grabbed his shirt collar, “No, wait! I’ll tell you, just sit your ass down and don’t go to school today, promise me.”

Hinata wanted to swat his friend’s hand away and run off, but something told him that Souda was dead serious. And Souda was rarely even at the edge of seriousness, so this must really be something serious.

“I’m listening,” he said, sitting back down on his chair as he was told and crossing his arms, looking at Souda expectingly.

“Okay,” Souda said, relieved that Hinata would at least hear him out for now. 

“So, what’s with the deal with everyone freaking out about Komaeda?” Hinata asked him. “He seems pretty normal to me. At least as a main course student.”

“You know how he’s the Ultimate Lucky Student, right?” Souda asked and Hinata nodded. “His talent…it works in a really messed up way. It’s almost like he absorbs other people’s good luck once you get too close to him, both physically and emotionally.”

“That sounds stupid,” Hinata said, almost laughing at Souda’s worried expression.

“I’m serious! Don’t you remember that one time Sonia had to go to the hospitalbecause her ankles got hurt? It was from falling while helping Komaeda pick up his textbooks!”

“Uh-huh,” Hinata huffed. Very convincing.

“And…and this other time, Tanaka, he had to sit next to Komaeda when we were on the bus to a baseball stadium for a school trip. He ended up losing all the keys to the bird cages at school,” Souda said, sounding genuinely frightened from the memory of it. “That couldn’t have been a coincidence!”

“It sounds pretty much like a plain coincidence to me,” Hinata argued. But Souda just shook his head frantically.

“Ask anyone in our class, hell, ask Komaeda himself,” Souda told him earnestly. “They will tell you the same, I can guarantee you.”

Once Souda finally left in peace alone in his room, he decided that he wasn’t going to be spooked out by what Souda and Tanaka had told him. He occasionally felt like the main course students are out of their minds from boredom in school, and some of them really were as proven by actions.

If it was just pure bad luck involving broken phones and burnt toasts, he thought that he could take it.

At least he thought he could.

 

***

 

Throughout the busy day he lived his average day as usual without being hit by a car as Souda had predicted. He barely made it to class when the bell rang, dozed off during lessons, ate his overpriced lunch in the cafeteria, went back to his classroom, dozed off again while taking notes, and then it was time to go home.

The day couldn't be any less average than the other six thousand days he had lived in his life so far.

Nanami had recovered from her cold as well and joined him on the way back to the dorm room like they always do. She didn't speak much at all during the walk because her preordered copy of a new combat game had arrived the night before and she stayed up trying to complete the storyline mode. Hinata was again automatically assigned the role of helping Nanami divert her walking course in case she bumped into an electric line pole like she did one time.

While Nanami was deep into her game, Hinata was also deep into his thoughts.

During recess he had gone to the library without Nanami. He typed in ‘luck’ in the search engine in the public PC and thanks to the vast collection of various genre of books in store within the Hope’s Peak data base, he found no less than ten books with the keyword. Most of them were just shitty self-help books, but he managed to check out a few which were actually relevant to what he was looking for.

With a heavy hardcopy of _The Luck Factor_ in his backpack, he felt his heart sinking along with it.

He couldn't explain why, but he just had this really strong feeling towards what Souda had informed him about Komaeda. He really couldn't explain it like how he could explain the two-swords theory in under a minute.

And he hated the feeling of not being able to understand something, so he _had_ to.

Nanami suggested that they could start their study session a bit earlier before returning to their rooms where the WiFi connection is basically nonexistent and, even when it worked, so slow that at least three people broke their phone screens from frustration.

“You’re just finding an excuse to have cake,” Hinata said.

“So?” she retorted.

About thirty minutes later, Nanami gave herself a break from maths and tapped on her game console while occasionally glancing up at Hinata. They were sitting in the cafe with piles of hand-written notes and textbooks on the table but Hinata was looking out of the misted window with drips of water falling off, forming lines and patterns on the smooth surface. 

For the record, he hardly ever zoned out during a study session no matter how tired he was, not when he had two essays due and four tests.

“Hey,” she said, tapping his hand with her pencil.

Hinata blinked a few times and turned his head from the outside to his friend sitting in front of him. “Yeah?”

“I think you’re obsessed with Nagito Komaeda,” Nanami suggested. “No, actually - you _are_ obsessed with Nagito Komaeda.”

“Uh, what?”

Nanami pointed at the copy of _The Luck Factor_ sitting unnoticeably on his lap while he was pretending to be reading the required materials for English.

“It’s just for science,” Hinata said, averting his eyes from Nanami’s.

“Stop lying, Hinata-kun,” Nanami was expressionless but Hinata could tell that she was rolling her eyes inside. “You are borderline stalking him just like Souda-kun with Sonia.”

“I’m not stalking anyone, okay?” Hinata contended, his heart beating at a faster rate than normal. “I’m just…curious.”

“Of what?”

“Of him, I guess,” he said, gripping onto the book on his hand. Luck was never a scientific concept; it was out of control and stood independently on its own. But what he had experience lately was far more than what science could explain, and he was legitimately curious to why this would happen.

Fine. Maybe he was _a little_ bit over the top, like jogging everyday at 5am in hopes of bumping into Komaeda again. _But who cares?_

“That’s just another word for ‘obsessed’,” Nanami said.

“It’s not.”

To prove that he was, kind of, not lying, he dropped the book back into his bag and started reading the English novel for real. To his consternation, he bumped into his coffee mug in the process and it tipped over, spilling the dark, bitter liquid all over the table, but luckily he picked it up just in time and prevented it from crashing into a million pieces before it hit the floor.

“Fuck,” he said, very calmly.

Nanami rummaged through her bag and found a packet of tissue paper, emptying its entire content and let the tissue paper soak through the coffee in order to rescue his precious notes.

“I got this,” she gave him a small smile.

“Thanks, Nanami,” he said, leaning back and sighing into his palms. “I wouldn't know what to do without you.”

“That’s gay,” she commented.

“You’re a girl,” he reminded her.

“Oh, right.” She picked up her console again. “But that doesn't change the fact that you are obsessed with Komaeda-kun.”

“Please, shut up, Nanami.”

They left the coffee shop shortly after Hinata threatened to stop copying maths notes for Nanami if she pushed on the topic any further. They came to a halt in front of the road, waiting for the traffic lights to change with a couple more students wearing reserve course uniforms. In a sea of black Nanami’s blazer stood out more than ever, but she didn't seem to notice as much as Hinata did, as always.

“Nanami, green light,” Hinata nudged her.

“Oh,” she raised her head for just a second before submerging back into her game world. “Let’s go.”

It all happened in a blink of an eye. No, it was less than a blink of an eye, because Hinata could see everything with eyes wide opened in shock.

The next second Hinata found himself at the edge of the traffic line, barely stepping out on the car road when a truck, a large one with tubes of natural gas on the back, flung across the street and just narrowly missed where he was standing.

And at that moment he thought he would see his seventeen years of _boring, average, colourless_ life flashing before his eyes.

When he didn't even have the time to push Nanami away or holler for help, someone grabbed his waist and pulled him back on the pavement when the truck regained its balance and rushed past them, crashing into the nearest wall.

Hinata hit the ground hard, his kneecaps bleeding and his head spinning like a ferry wheel out of control. Nanami was on the other side of the road, calling out his name as she struggled pass the curious crowd which gathered around the car crash.

When Hinata rolled over and opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Nagito Komaeda’s face. 

He looked even paler than before, if that was even possible; but that didn’t change the solidness of his pretty face.

“A piece of trash like me shouldn’t have even touched your skin,” Komaeda said, his voice even breathier from the running, and probably grabbing Hinata from the road. He let go of Hinata’s shirt quickly. “I’m so sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Hinata said, still panting from the sudden fright he had just now. He felt angry and he didn't exactly know why. His knees were hurting like hell but he couldn't give less of a shit about it. “You saved my fucking life!”

“And I was also the one who put you into danger,” Komaeda said calmly. “I pressed the signal changing button and to my luck, it turned green right away, which resulted in a driver not noticing the red light and nearly running you over.”

“It’s not your - ”

“Oh, yes, it is undoubtably my fault, I’m afraid,” Komaeda interrupted him. “Seeing that Souda-kun had probably explained to you why I can’t be approached, it is time for you to give up on me just like everyone else had, Hinata-kun.”

Hinata gaped at him. “How did you - ”

“You have been thinking a lot about me, haven’t you?” Komaeda continued.

Hinata felt his face turning red because he wasn’t entirely wrong about that. But he couldn't help it, couldn’t he? Nagito Komaeda was the only student living in the boy’s dorm who never attended any social events, any of their games, not even sports day or health checks. For the past year Hinata had been studying here, he didn’t even put the name Nagito Komaeda to a face.

Now that he had, it was stuck in his mind.

And he was _obsessed_.

In the midst of a clusterfuck, he could only stare at Komaeda wordlessly.

“Keep me out of sight and out of mind, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda said gently. “Or next time it woudn’t be a car; it would be an airplane, or a satellite crashing from space.”

“I don't believe in that,” Hinata said, struggling to stand up on his wounded legs, glaring at Komaeda. “I don't believe in your talent. The good luck and bad luck thing - it’s all…just bullshit.”

“It’s sometimes better to believe the worst,” was the answer he received from Komaeda. 

Hinata let out a shaky laughter.

“Do all you main course people speak in paradoxes?” he said.

“You should go to the hospital,” Komaeda said. “Your trousers are soaked in blood.”

Instinctively Hinata looked down on his knees, and found in horror that Komaeda was correct. His trousers were torn and ripped from the fall and blood was dripping from the wounds.

When he raised his head, Komaeda was already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so basically this is an AU where ko’s talent as the ultimate lucky student isn’t the exchange of bad luck to good luck and is instead taking other’s good luck away and giving out bad luck in return, this way he himself wouldn't suffer from any bad luck but the people around him were overwhelmed with misfortune all the time. His parents aren’t dead in this fic for the same reason lol.
> 
> also i live for hinanami brotp mmmmmmmmmmmmmm


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so bad at writing komahina non-angst fics i swear but i just want them to be happy :(

 

The bandages Tsumiki had applied on Hinata's knees were too tight, but he didn't tell her in fear of her melting into a sobbing and apologetic mess again. He thanked her sincerely for helping him and she left his room with a timid smile. Hinata always thought that she ought to have more faith in herself for being such a talented nurse, but who was him to wish that when he himself had no self confidence whatsoever for starters?

The stinging pain from the disinfectant applied on his wounds lingered as he stood up and left the common room connecting the boys' and girls' dorms. Nanami was sitting on the oversized armchair next to him quietly. Hinata knew that she was still quite shaken by what just happened to him about an hour ago.

“Did it hurt?” she asked in concern.

“When I fell from heaven?” he said jokingly.

“I'm serious,” Nanami frowned with a pout. She really was worried, and Hinata felt kind of bad about it.

“It doesn't hurt anymore,” Hinata replied. “Don't sweat over it.”

She didn't look relieved at all. “You almost died.”

“I wouldn’t have died.”

She was silent for a moment before saying, “I think maybe you should take a few days off from school.”

“What? Why?”

“I don't know,” she admitted, fidgeting the hem of her skirt. “I just don't want you to get in trouble again.”

“I'll be fine,” Hinata promised her. “I’m sure this is just some crazy accident. Wrong-place-wrong-time kind of accident.”

“But what if it isn’t?" Nanami said softly.

“Wait, don't tell me…” Hinata trailed off. “Do you actually believe in this luck thing like Souda?”

“It's not that I believe in it, but it is real, Hinata-kun.” Nanami seemed a bit hesitant when she told him. Hinata was reasonably shocked because Nanami was one of the most down to earth person he had ever known.

“Are you serious right now?” he said with raised eyebrows.

“I’m always serious,” she said. “And I know that Souda-kun may not be the most trustworthy person in the world, but…he didn’t make it up.”

They fell into silence simultaneously while Hinata blinked in confusion and Nanami probably processing the dialogue in her mind like an RPG game, fathoming a way to fully convince Hinata.

“Look, I don’t know what exactly Komaeda did to _your_ class to make everyone hate him so much, it’s just a bit unfair to pin all these on him, don’t you think?” he said and tried not to sound accusing but in the end it still ended up sounding a bit accusing.

“Well, it’s also unfair for you to say this, since _you_ are the one who has an irrational crush on him,” she said impassively.

“I do not have a crush on him.”

And he didn’t. He knew what an irrational crush was. Crushing on strangers, crushing on people in his elective classes whom he had never even talked to, crushing on the person standing in front of him in a train, and crushing on Chiaki Nanami when he first met her. But crushes wear off in seconds, minutes and days. Crushes were just a rush of irrationality which never manifested themselves as something real or tangible. They mostly remained feelings which would eventually be forgotten in time.

The crush on Chiaki Nanami probably wore off the day she told him she had a boyfriend, who was unsurprisingly Soma Schicksal from God Eater.

He still couldn't explain why he felt so compelled to figure Nagito Komaeda out. Maybe he just wanted new things to study instead of the constant boring content of the national curriculum and after school activities. Or maybe it was the uncontrollable magnet effect Komaeda had with the people who didn't actually know him. But it was most likely that Komaeda’s distant attitude reminded him of someone who could only be himself.

And it was definitely not a crush.

Nanami covered a yawn with her hands and turned to him. “I’m too tired to argue with you today. Sleep tight, Hinata-kun.”

“It’s only 5pm,” Hinata said, gesturing at the clock on top of the television.

“Time isn’t real,” she replied sleepily, standing up and leaving the common room while stretching her arms.

Hinata began to unfold his rolled up trousers, wincing in pain when he accidentally touched his kneecaps during the process.

Strangely enough, Souda wasn’t in the dorm that night, giving Hinata a chance to sneak back to his room without Souda yelling ‘I told you so’ in his face.

When he was standing in the middle of the hallway in front of his room, fumbling in his pockets for the key, he heard a door creak in the distant quite loudly. He turned to the source of the noise, expecting someone to walk out of his room, but the hallway remained empty.

Weird.

Driven by curiosity, he put his key back into his shirt pocket and continued walking across the long hallway until he had reached an unlocked door with the door frame swinging back and forth idly from the wind blown through the window. All the lights were off and the room was empty, as shown from the small crack of the door. 

It was room 217, the last room in the corridor with the least lighting and most ghost stories in the building. Whoever who was assigned this room must be exceptionally unlucky and careless to leave his door open while nobody was in the room.

Just when Hinata was about to grab the door knob and close it properly for the room’s residence, a strong force of wind shot through the window like an invisible bullet, pushing the door forwards; not harsh enough to collide it with the wall, but definitely enough for Hinata to see everything inside the room.

There was a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a chair, and that was it. No posters on the wall, no clothes on the bed, no bags hanging on the chair, no books on the desk. Nothing. No signs in this room showed traces of a lodger as there was no personal touch at all. Everything was so neat and monotoned it was like an oversized prison cell.

And then it hit him.

This was Komaeda’s room. It had to be.

He spent nights wandering outside in the dark and Hinata had rarely even seen him in the dorm house at all while he had bumped into strangers for more times than he had met Komaeda in person. His eyes lingered in the empty room for a moment before shutting the door gently, and hearing a tiny click when the door locked automatically.

Although he was nowhere admitting it aloud, he was wondering where Komaeda might be.

 

***

 

It was the last week of November and what was considered cold enough had fused with a thunderstorm, producing a weather so cold that Hinata wanted to fake his own death to escape from the torture of walking to class. He buried his face in the black scarf he bought in a clearance sale a few years ago, hands gloved mask worn and the thickest pair of socks he could find pulled right up to he knees. The injury from about a week ago had recovered quickly under Tsumiki’s care and only two fading scars left.

It had also been a week since he had last seen Komaeda and nearly died from a freak accident.

Snow had started to fall particularity early this year and Hinata attempted to tuck all of his untidy hair under a beanie before leaving his room in hopes of protecting every part of his body from getting soaked. 

He had gone home for the weekend because his mom was quite worried about him after Nanami told her what happened behind his back. The last thing he wanted was for his parents to worry about him; they had already worried enough with his academic performance and his adjustability to living by himself in a dorm house. This meant that he got to eat some nice home cooked meal for the first time in two months not some ridiculously low-quality and expensive cafeteria sandwiches which should honestly be banned by law, but it also meant that he had to get up an hour earlier than usual and take the underground to get to school.

There was a huge crowd in front of the entrance of the underground, all bundled together to escape from the cold and submerge themselves with the free heater inside of the station. Hinata waited patiently until the people in front of him finally cleared a path for him to walk through.

The overly-bright lighting in the station made Hinata squint his tired eyes for a bit. He took off his coat briefly because there were so many people breathing out the same air it was almost as hot as summer in front of the gates.

“ _Due to a technical problem with train signals and tracking systems, all trains travelling on the XXX line will be shut down until further notice, we apologise for any convenience casued…_ ”

A middle-aged office worker standing beside Hinata cut off the broadcast with a loud complaint. A few people surrounding him groaned and started to make their way back onto the ground floor, and get to work through another public transport. 

This was such _bad luck_.

Hinata apologised to a few people he had bumped into on the way back onto the staircase, stuffing his phone and wallet back into his pockets and pondering how he could get to school in time when there was no buses nearby which could take him back to Hope’s Peak.

And that was when he saw a shade of white wrapped with the dark materials of cloth walking in front of him, a heavy-looking messenger bag hanging on and off a shoulder, shoes stained with melted snow and an unwillingness to be approached. Hinata gulped and reached out, grabbing Nagito Komaeda’s shoulder and stopping him mid-way up the stairs.

“Uh, hey,” he said awkwardly.

Komaeda looked at him with an almost nonchalant expression on his face, as if he somehow knew that Hinata would call out to him at this time and this place, the most unlikely spot where they could have met.

“Good morning,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” Hinata demanded. He knew that it wasn’t his business at all, since he wasn’t really even Komaeda’s friend, as he had said before. But the question slipped his mouth because he could process it properly in his brain.

“Well,” Komaeda started. “I was going to school before you stopped me.”

“Oh,” Hinata said, realising that he still had a palm on Komaeda and quickly withdrawing it. “Wait, you live here?”

“I don’t see how this concerns you, a reserve course student who has nothing to do with me,” Komaeda brushed him off quickly and turned around, making it clear that he was disinterested from talking to Hinata. But Hinata was way faster than him and picked up his pace until he was walking on the same step on the staircase as Komaeda.

Now he really felt like a stalker. But he couldn't had just let this chance slip away.

“What now?” Komaeda asked. He still sounded polite as usual but Hinata could tell that he was losing his patience, so he had to make his pitch quick.

“Would you want to…go to school together?”

Komaeda blinked once, twice, and started to chuckle out of the blue. The laugh was muffled in his scarf but Hinata could hear it loud and clear.

“I never took you for an adventurous type, Hinata-kun, or is it just that appealing to be actually hit by a bus?”

“Both, I guess,” Hinata admitted.

Komaeda made no further comment so Hinata assumed that he was okay with taking the bus together. Just this once.

At least this was a start. Kind of.

Hinata briskly checked on his phone and found that there was a bus that could take them two streets away from Hope’s Peak, which was close enough.

The thirty-second walk to the bus stop seemed to be dragging on for thirty-minutes when they walked on the stairs that led to the exit of the underground station. The crowd had pushed them on each other and Komaeda’s arm brushed ever so slightly against his though the chunky material of their clothes. But Hinata could felt it, the heat of his body temperature, and the white mist that he exhaled. An inexplicable feeling rose in his heart, and he couldn’t put it into context or make any sense out of it to himself. Komaeda’s cheeks was bright red from the strong and piercing wind, rubbing his ungloved hands together for warmth while Hinata pretended that he wasn’t staring at the huge contract of white and red on his godly face.

When thirty minutes had passed as they sat in silence in the bus stop, watching cars come and go in front of them and leaving them in a mist of grey smoke, Hinata had the feeling that the bad luck at the start of day was probably also going to stop him from going to school, too.

“I’m going home,” he kind of said to the void, because he couldn't tell if Komaeda was listening or not or he had dozed off on the bench, because he was just so quiet. If it wasn’t for Hinata’s irrationality, he would probably had forgotten that he was sitting next to him.

Komaeda looked at him but didn't say anything.

“What are you going to do?” Hinata asked. “Your home is nearby, isn’t it?”

“…Not exactly,” he replied softly.

“But you said you were going to sch-”

“Yeah, because I lied.”

“Oh.”

Another minute passed when Hinata took off his mask and breathed in the thick winter air in hopes of calming his own heartbeat down. He couldn’t believe that he was about to say this, but he still did.

“You wanna come over to my place? So that you won’t, you know, freeze to death on the streets?”

“Huh?”

“I live in an apartment building just three minutes walk away from here,” Hinata said, gesturing at the sky when he continued, “The snow is probably not gonna stop until tonight. We’re stuck here until the train service resumes which could take days.”

“You’re probably right,” Komaeda said, standing up and brushing away the snow that had landed on his lap through cracks of on the glass shade of the bus stop.

Hinata stood up as well. It had been well over two years since he had anyone over at his house, mainly because his parents mostly didn't approve of who he associated with in middle school; those people being ‘students from the average class who couldn't squeeze themselves onto the top 10 in the grade’. Therefore he couldn't see how they would welcome Nanami, the ultimate gamer, or Komaeda, the ultimate lucky student, with opened arms. They would probably even appreciate Souda’s talents more, since he was a mechanic and mechanics generally earn a decent living after graduation. But now that both of his parents were working, he could enjoy 8 hours of freedom with someone else’s company.

It took him a bit longer for Hinata to unlock the front door of the apartment than usual, mainly because Komaeda was looking around the old building as if he had just discovered Atlantis, and the mere fact that he was here, right behind him, made him nervous.

He finally pushed the door open and he kicked off his soaked shoes. Komaeda took his off carefully, lined them up against the wall neatly and whispered “sorry to bother” under his breath.

When he sat down in front of Komaeda at the table with two cups of hot tea on the wooden surface, he still couldn’t think of what to talk about. Komaeda drank his tea quietly, still having all of his jackets on even if Hinata had already turned on the heater in the room, like he was going to walk out of the door back into the cold streets without warning.

Hinata was pretty sure all these were driving him crazy. He wished that dating sim dialogue options would appear in thin air so that he would at least have one-third of a chance of saying the right thing.

Running out of options, he turned on the TV. All the channels were either airing the news of the earliest first snow in November recorded since 1920s, or some boring talk shows were nobody who had something better to do would ever watch. Hinata clicked on the remote control aimlessly, hoping that Komaeda would break the awkward silence instead.

And he did.

“Hinata-kun,” Komaeda said.

“Yes?” Hinata nearly shot up from his seat.

“I should go.”

“You have only been here for five minutes.”

“If I continue to stay here, the building might collapse any minute by now,” Komaeda reasoned.

“I’m sure that wouldn't happen,” Hinata retorted.

“And you were sure that you wouldn't die from talking to me, either.”

“And I didn’t, that’s the point, right?”

Komaeda looked at him with a mixture of pity and sadness in his glassy eyes.

“And this is exactly why you can only ever be a reserve course student, Hinata-kun,” he said coldly. “You are too blinded by your own truth.”

Hinata was more intrigued by Komaeda’s words than offended. He raised his eyebrows and said, “And this reserve course student is still trying to befriend you, even if you have been described as an asshole by pretty much all of the people you know.”

“Ah, I see now,” Komaeda said. “Nanami-san must have sent you to talk to me, when all the tricks she pulled herself didn't work. Such devotion to your girlfriend to talk to a disgusting piece of trash like me, Hinata-kun - I admire that.”

“Okay, first of all,” Hinata asserted. Now he really was a bit offended. “Nanami didn't send me to talk to you in any way, shape or form. Second of all, she is not and never my girlfriend.”

That didn't sound one bit believable nor convincing, and Komaeda picked up on that.

“May I ask, Hinata-kun,” he said, leaning forward closer to Hinata on his chair. “What is it that makes you want to befriend me so badly?”

Hinata wanted to speak, but his throat was dry. It was like someone turned off the power and shut down some of the functions of his body, it felt weird.

Yeah, why? On what bases was he trying to know Nagito Komaeda? They didn't have any mutual friends, they hardly ever spoken to each other, they didn't know each other, period.

But still Hinata ran after him like the opposite side of a magnet. The undefinable attraction which drew him to Komaeda, the strings that pulled him towards the cluster of good and bad luck encompassing Komaeda.

For a second he thought of Nanami’s words. “ _You are obsessed with Nagito Komaeda_.” He didn't believe her, but now that Komaeda was here, in his home, sitting at the opposite side of the table and looking at him with crossed fingers, he thought that maybe she didn't get it all wrong after all.

“I want to know more about you,” he ended up saying, and then it hit him that he had been candidly trying to pick up this guy who he didn't really know and even an irrational crush wouldn't have explained why, either.

Upon hearing such a bizarre and ambiguous answer, even Komaeda was out of words to say.

 

 

***

 

The train services resumed soon after both of them sat with Hinata’s face burning from embarrassment and they remind silent until they parted ways on the diversion point between the reserve course and main course building, hoping that they could make it in time for the afternoon lessons.

The rest of the day felt like a daydream and Hinata was hardly paying attention to the streets until Nanami dragged his tie harshly to make sure he still had a sane mind.

“What?” he said in annoy.

“Your bisexual ass did something stupid again, didn’t you,” she asked blandly.

“No!” Hinata said a bit too defensively.

“Then why are you blushing?”

“Because it’s cold as fuck out here.”

“You know, _Hinata-kun_ ,” she said. Hinata had never noticed that she and Komaeda were the only ones who called him that, and this fact suddenly became overly obvious. “I never really understood your taste, but he does have a pretty nice face, I have to admit that…”

“Please stop.”

“Komaeda-kun went to class today and he was looking like he had seen space with his own two eyes. What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything to him!” Hinata yelled. A few people gave him looks and he blushed even harder. “I just…invited him to my place when the trains stopped services because of the snow.”

Nanami raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s it?”

“What else could there possibly be?” Hinata rolled his eyes at her.

“You like him,” Nanami concluded.

“Um, excuse me?”

“You like Komaeda-kun, don’t you?” Nanami repeated. “You are saying things like Kurusu-kun when he found out that he fell in love with Haruka.”

“What the hell is a Kurusu.”

“Syo Kurusu from Uta no Prince-sama.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, but you got it wrong,” Hinata told her disdainfully.

It was the truth. He didn’t want more shaming after Nanami found out he had lied. Nanami was pretty good at shaming him, as he had experienced before regarding a similar issue.

“Who knows,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe you two will even be voted the best couple of the year before graduation when they make the yearbook.”

Hinata was too abashed to even reply to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to ignore all the game references that i cant refrain myself from adding lmfao


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS A LONG ASS CHAPTER SJGASAKSJAH
> 
> ALSO THE PLOT IS SO ILLOGICAL BUT IM TOO LAZY TO CHANGE IT FROM THE INITIAL STORY PLAN

 

Komaeda insisted that Hinata didn’t need to check his multiple choice paper, because there was a 99% chance of him getting all of them correct even if he didn’t actually know half of the answer.

Just about a week ago, the homeroom teacher of the 77-B class - Yuki-something, Hinata couldn’t quite recall her name - did her students a ‘huge favour’ and signed all of them up for the reserve course mock exam to ‘give them a taste of what public exams feels like’ and to prep them for the real one coming up in March.

Still skeptical of the other’s statement, Hinata skimmed through the answer paper and found out that Komaeda was right. No mistakes were made and he already attained a perfect grade even without answering any of the essay questions.

For the first time Hinata was a bit jealous of Komaeda’s talent. Just the luck bit, though. Because for all he knew, Komaeda didn’t even look at one word in that damned textbook.

He was kind of friends with Komaeda now. Even if Komaeda kept insisting that Hinata ‘did not possess the hope from within’ in order to ‘surpass all the despair’ as a reserve course student, or something, all while reminding him daily that a life-threatening event might occur again if Hinata still chose to hung out with himself. But for the past twenty days he had made acquaintances with Komaeda, there were no more freak accidents, no more near-death experiences. Except for that one time when he was helping out Hanamura in the common room kitchen and accidentally cut his thumb when he was cleaning the knives, and it wasn’t even that serious.

However, even if Hinata was now immune to having something of an emotional connection with Komaeda and did not get into any trouble because of it, the _touching_ still affected him, and it hurt like hell sometimes if he wasn’t careful enough.

He cut his thumb in the kitchen after accidentally touching Komaeda’s hand while he handed over a textbook to him. He fell flat on his face after forcibly giving Komaeda a fist bump even if the other insisted that he should not (and he should had listened). He chocked on orange juice and couldn't stop the coughing fit it gave him for five minutes after tapping on Komaeda’s shoulder to get his attention.

But the misfortunes were just little things. They didn't bother him as much as Komaeda thought it would; if he had to be honest, it was almost like a new excitement in his repetitive life, and he really didn't mind having that at the moment.

Sighing and leaning one side of his cheek onto his hand, Hinata watched when Komaeda read the Biology textbook with semi-concentration. His hair was a bit tidier after getting an unnoticeable haircut, his apparent jawline and dark shades under his eyes made him seem a bit ill.

Komaeda’s lips were bright red from unconsciously biting it whenever he came a cross a word he didn't understand, and would turn around to ask Hinata for the definition, at the same time helping Hinata to revise. Apart from being to preoccupied with staring, it also made Hinata realise how chapped and dry his own ones were.

“Hinata-kun,” he said. “What is depolarisation?”

“Uh…”

“Aren’t reserve course students supposed to be good at reciting things?”

“Shut it, just give me a second.” Hinata furrowed his brows and tried to recall the precise definition of this term.

“There, one second has passed,” Komaeda said.

“I didn’t mean that in the literal way!” Hinata retorted, rolling his eyes. “I need to read the textbook real quick.”

“Really?” Komaeda smirked. “The textbook? I didn’t expect that from know-it-all Hajime Hinata.”

“Come on, give it back!” 

Somewhere between the process of snatching the book away from Komaeda, still laughing while Hinata felt new to Komaeda actually joking in a non-self-depreciating way, he slammed into his shoulder when Komaeda leaned backwards on his chair, holding the textbook away from Hinata.

But it didn’t just end like that. It never does.

With a loud, horrifying screeching noise, a leg of Hinata’s chair broke right at that moment, causing him to fall forwards, knocking Komaeda down on the floor along with himself.

“ _Shit!_ ”

Hinata stood up quickly, looking at the damage he has caused. The textbook flew a few feet away from them, and Komaeda was still on the floor, with the back of the chair acting as a barrier to protect his head from hitting the ground, his legs sprawled on a side in a very awkward position.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Hinata said, but at the same time he was holding back a laughter. He outstretched a hand towards Komaeda, who had a stunned expression on his face, probably still dazed from his harsh fall.

Komaeda didn’t move for a while, before saying, “Don’t touch me.” And his words had the same effect of pouring down a bucket of cold water on Hinata when it was snowing outside.

“Are you…okay?”

“I’m okay,” Komaeda insisted, struggling to get up from the ground. “Just…don’t touch me.”

“Okay,” Hinata said, slightly offended by Komaeda’s defensiveness. “I’m not touching you.”

Komaeda finally got up and set the chair up straight again, refusing to let Hinata help him. Hinata walked behind him and picked up the textbook from the ground. The rare fun they were having together just now disappeared in the void.

Looking quite troubled, Komaeda looked at him and said, “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologising.”

“That was rude of me,” Komaeda exhaled. “Not letting you help me.”

“You have every right to refuse my help, if you don’t want me to.”

Komaeda bit his bottom lip again and didn't reply, and Hinata sighed. The broken chair laid on the ground unmoved, and Hinata decided that they should call it a day for now.

 

 

***

 

Komaeda never reply to phone calls or texts, and only met Hinata once a day at the reserve course library, but Hinata discovered that he seemed to can find Komaeda just about whenever, wherever he wanted to see him.

Which was just weird, but he chose to ignore it.

They bumped into each other in the strangest place possible that night. In a convenience store at two in the morning. Hinata was halfway eating a cup of instant noodles at the food counter while Komaeda walked in to the shop almost like a sleep-deprivation-induced delusion.

“Komaeda!” Hinata exclaimed at the sight of him. Komaeda gave him a slight wave, but didn’t look half as excited to see him.

“I never took you for the kind of person who has a nightlife,” he said.

“Well, neither have I,” Hinata replied. “I only came here because I was studying while starving.”

He looked at Komaeda, expecting an explanation of his presence in the store as well but never got one in return. Komaeda sat down on the tall stool next to him, ignoring the dirty look the cashier was throwing at him for not purchasing anything before settling down.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be - ”

“At home?” Komaeda said. “Yes, you’re right, but sometimes…I just don’t feel like going home, if you understand what I mean.”

“I think I do.”

It was snowing outside and Hinata’s wet umbrella was placed beside the stool he was occupying. A man in suit who sat next to him a few minutes ago stood up and left, leaving him and Komaeda the only people remained in the 24/7 convenient store.

A lot of the students went home for study leave, including the main course kids who supposedly were also spending the holiday seasons with their family. Hinata didn’t feel like going home either, because he didn’t need more people other than himself to impose more pressure to his study schedule. He stopped running study groups for his main course friends for the same reasons. All except for Komaeda, who also stayed in the dorm sometimes and apparently never packed his bags for Christmas holiday back home just like himself.

Komaeda looked cold, his hair was blown wildly from the wind outdoors and his eyes were extra puffy because of that. Hinata reached down to pick up his backpack and handed Komaeda a thermo mug he kept underneath his scarf.

“No, thank you, I don’t like coffee,” Komaeda said, shaking his head.

“It’s cream soup,” Hinata corrected him. Komaeda’s eyes lit up. He loved salty foods, as Hinata recalled from the other’s regular cafeteria diet.

Komaeda wrapped his hands around the mug, looking slightly pleased from the heat it conducted onto his bare hands. Hinata ate his noodles quietly while Komaeda drank his soup. It was actually just some discounted can soup he made in the common room kitchen and it probably tasted like shit, but Komaeda didn’t seem to mind.

He never gave much about himself. Hinata didn’t know where exactly he lived, where his parents were, whether if they were worried about him not spending Christmas at home. Moreover he didn’t even know why Komaeda liked to wander in the dark so much, when it was cold and the streets were empty like a horror movie. But he didn’t ask, because Komaeda never gave a real answer to anything at all.

Komaeda remained an unknown to him, and he felt like it was going to be like this no matter how long he had known him.

Hinata finished up his noodles and threw the empty paper cup into the trash can under the counter. Komaeda drank half of his soup and was still holding onto the mug tightly like a life saver.

“Maybe it’s not hard to believe, but I never had a friend before,” he suddenly said. His voice was low, as if afraid to be overheard, but there was no one besides of Hinata within hearing range.

“Yeah, I gathered that,” Hinata muttered.

“But, Hinata-kun, I feel like…” he trailed off, voice softening. “There is a connection between us. There is _something_ that I have always been looking for, and even if you are just a reserve course student, it might be within you, after all…”

They were both silent for a while, and Hinata’s heart almost missed a beat.

“Komaeda, what are you trying to say?” Hinata asked, his voice shaking while he was trying to contain his heartbeat down the throat. His pulse was so loud that he could feel it in his veins, a wave of blood rushing through his body and almost making him sweat from it.

“I want to ask you something, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda told him in all sincerity. “Maybe it is too much to ask for, and I wouldn't mind if you end up hating me even more for that.”

The heating in the shop was too hot, to the point that Hinata was sweating with his thick jacket on. The cashier dropped a packet of cigarettes on the ground, making a small muffling noise of plastic wrinkling together and footsteps. Hinata held his breath, and Komaeda opened his mouth again.

“Will you be my friend, Hinaka-kun?” he said.

_And that was it._

Hinata honestly didn’t know what he was expecting. Or maybe, he knew exactly what he was expecting, but he didn't want to admit it to himself. A pang of disappointment mixed with relief hit him while he managed to smile at Komaeda.

“I am already your friend,” Hinata said.

‘Really?” Komaeda asked. He looked genuinely surprised by Hinata’s answer.

“Of course, you are already my friend from the start,” Hinata replied with a grin. “You didn’t have to go about asking me.”

And he thought that really was it.

 

 

***

 

It was Biology exam and Hinata couldn’t concentrate either.

He spun his pen restlessly, once, twice, and it dropped with a loud ‘clang’ when it hit his desk, placed approximately 1.5 metres apart from the person sitting in front of him.

He was looking at his mock exam paper but all the numbers and words were spinning and rotating like a casino roulette. He also felt a bit sick to the stomach but he couldn't ask for another toilet break because the supervising teacher, Juzo Sakakura, hated his guts for various reasons. Putting his pen aside, he breathed into his hands in the cold, hollow main hall where he never stepped foot in except for assemblies and end-of-school-year speeches.

All just because Nagito Komaeda happened to sit right next to him, also approximately 1.5 metres away from his chair. Hinata was never the type to have a blank mind or panic during any forms of tests, because he had composure _for fuck’s sake_ , but he felt like he was legit going to throw up at that moment.

Nanami was sitting a few rows ahead of him. He could see her head bobbing off her shoulders dangerously as she slept through the quietness. Souda was at the opposite corner of the room, writing vigorously on his paper in exaggerated movements, probably trying impress Sonia who was sitting a seats behind him.

He wasn’t supposed to sit at the back of the hall, but apparently there had been a technical mistake when the exam registration created the seating plan and he was singled out from all the people who shared the first letter of his first name. He didn't exactly know how that happened, but thanks to their small mistake he was now permanently stuck on question 1.

The Biology mock exam paper was only about ten pages long, questions and answer booklet included. Hinata tried to focus on one word at a time, tracing his finger through every line as he read the second question.

 

**2) What is the normal rate of blood glucose of an adult?**

 

That was an easy question, he thought to himself. Alright, you’ve got this.

And then he wrote ’ **55** ’ on the next line because it was the exact number printed on Komaeda’s weirdly shaped coat.

_God dammit._

He rubbed it out with his eraser and bit his lower lip, reminding himself that even if this was a mock test, the results were still going to be published on the school-board website and his parents were probably going to send him to a juvenile institution if he didn’t get on the top three shortlist.

The answer was 4-6 millimoles per litre of blood, he wrote it down quickly before his mind got lost in the wave of white hair next to him again.

This was _bad luck_.

 

**9) Explain how the structure of DNA is related to its functions.**

 

By the time he got to the last question, half of the main hall was already empty as students who had already finished their exams were allowed to leave. Many threw curious glances at Hinata on the way to the exit at the back of the room because usually he was the one who would had already packed his bags and left within thirty minutes. But there he was, studying the paper like it was an ancient script written in Old Norse.

_Come on, Hajime Hinata, get your shit together._

Hinata saw in the corner of his eyes that Komaeda was fast asleep on his desk, his chest rising up and down as he breathed frailly and steadily. His hair spread across the table and his face buried in his arms. Clearly he was no good at Biology, either.

“Quit looking around!” Hinata jolted when Sakakura slammed a fist on his table.

“Sorry, _sir_ ,” he said with the utmost sarcasm one could convey in such a simple sentence.

Sakakura threw him a dirty look and walked away, continuing to patrol the hall and terrorise all the remaining students taking the exam.

When Hinata looked back down on his paper, the exam coordinator said, “Time’s up, candidates, please put down your pens” through the PA system. Hinata winced at the blank page 10 on his paper.

Completely disheartened, he stood up and stuffed his stationary back into his bag when the coordinator collected his unfinished paper. Maybe he should fake a cold again, so that his parents would be at least a little bit more forgiving than himself.

Trying hard to be an academic elite that he wasn’t like his parents did was the longest-running joke in his life, probably.

After all, he was just a talentless, average, vanilla plain, boring, monotonous - 

“Hinata-kun?”

Hinata stopped his movements and realised that he had been gripping on the zipper on his bag for the past ten seconds or so. Komaeda, who had been awoken from deep sleep by the coordinator, looked at him in slight concern.

“Hi,” Hinata said in a daze.

“I’m sorry for making you fail the exam,” Komaeda told him bluntly.

“You didn’t make me fail the exam,” Hinata said. “I failed the exam.”

“But you were sitting next to me and I saw - ”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll survive failing _once_.”

Even if there were some bad luck moments here and there while being close to Komaeda, he was quite certain that failing Biology was his own fault for not being able to maintain his cognitive abilities.

“You wanna head to the park?” Hinata asked him when they were walking across the hallway. Komaeda was just a bit taller than him, the difference was almost impossible to tell, but Hinata felt like he was miles shorter when they were inside of the reserve course building.

“What’s it in for me?” Komaeda said, half-jokingly.

“I’ve got fries.” It wasn’t a lie. But then again, he may or may not have bought it during lunch due to Komaeda’s love for salty food.

“Fine.”

“It’s not like you have anyone else to hang out with, anyway.”

“And I’m sure that’s the case for you, too, Hinata-kun; I’m sure you’d rather be with another person who is actually worthy of your time,” Komaeda threw it right back, and Hinata wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a sarcastic statement or plain self-depreciation.

“Don’t say things like that,” Hinata told him sternly.

“Like what?”

“Like, calling yourself unworthy, because you’re not.”

It sounded unconvincing as fuck, and Hinata cringed internally. Komaeda didn’t say anything. He tightened his grip on the strap of his bag and fixed his eyes at the ground.

When they walked past the courtyard, Hinata saw Nanami and some of the other girls from her class standing beside the football field, chattering away with winter clothes wrapped from head to toe. Nanami was the only one who wasn’t paying full attention to the conversation and she saw Hinata, giving him a wave and an almost sly smile at the sight of Komaeda beside him. He still couldn't understand why Nanami found it to be such an exciting idea for him to get involved with Komaeda, when she was the one who kept warning him about the possibility of bad luck associated with Komaeda in the first place.

It was a cloudless afternoon and the warmth of the sunlight reduced some of the coldness of December. Hinata was on his phone while Komaeda read his paperback novel, both eating the bag of fries Hinata brought for lunch which was placed between them on the bench.

And this didn't do anything to help with his hummingbird heartbeat, either. Sometimes it happened when he was with Komaeda, and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes he just felt a magnetic field building a force between them so inundating that he found it hard to breathe.

And sometimes it was just plain nothing.

His phone buzzed and Nanami’s text appeared on the notification bar.

 

**Nanami: date?**

**Me: no**

**Nanami: :)**

**Me: what is with that emoji**

**Nanami: it means i don't believe in you**

**Me: he is my friend, like you are my friend, no difference**

**Nanami: but the difference is that you want a piece of him, not of me**

 

Immediately pressing the home button to escape to his lock screen, Hinata prevented Komaeda from reading the conversation just when he turned to look at him. He reckoned that the constant buzzing of his phone must have distracted Komaeda from reading.

“Popular, aren’t you?” Komaeda said teasingly.

“Not really.”

And he wasn’t lying. His classmates disliked him, mocking him that he was ‘too good for them’ and only chose to hang out with the main course students to feel a bit better about his pathetic self. The truth was nobody in his year tried to befriend him, either, probably envious of the fact that he was the only one who received full tuition exemption. It was just a universal fact that people always despise those who were better off than themselves, even for just a little bit.

“Hinata-kun.” Komaeda slipped a bookmark on a page and put the paperback flat on his lap. Just like when Nanami put down her PSP once in a while to engage in human interaction, Hinata knew that he had something to say that was worth putting down his novel.

“Yes?”

“Is it good luck, or bad luck?”

Hinata blinked a few times. “What luck?”

“Meeting me, is it good or bad luck?”

It was weird because as much as Komaeda talked about and only talked about his luck, he had never asked a question quite like this. It took Hinata aback for a second but he quickly formed an answer.

“It’s good luck, isn’t it?” he said. “I mean…it’s never bad luck to have a new friend, I guess.”

“Is that really what you think?” Komaeda asked. He was still smiling, but he looked distressed at the same time for some reason.

“Yeah, why not,” Hinata shrugged.

“I truly envy your reserve-course naivety sometimes, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda simpered. “Have you forgotten than knowing me almost cost you your life?”

“But…it is good luck. I know it is.”

Hinata didn’t quite know how to answer Komaeda’s precipitous question. But now apart from having a strong will to understand Komaeda, he also developed a tendency of wanting to lead him away from the self-degrading mindset that they probably both shared. When he heard Komaeda talk shit about himself, it physically hurt him because it was like seeing a mirrored image of his own brain screaming at him about how worthless he was, and that the world would keep turning with or without him.

He wanted to _fix_ Komaeda, in one way or another like how he wanted someone to fix himself like a broke-down machine.

Komaeda shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his seat, and his book slipped over his lap and dropped on the ground with a muffled noise. He sighed and bent down to pick it up, but Hinata was quicker than him and already placed his hand on the book. His fingers brushed Komaeda’s ever so slightly and a dose of pain like electric-shock shot through his whole body and he pulled his hand back, knocking over the bag of fries in the process and scattering its remaining contents on the ground.

“Sorry!” Komaeda said, quickly picking up his book and shoving it in his bag like it was a bag of biodegradable waste.

Hinata didn’t response, too bewildered when he stared at his hand, the sting of pain still remained on the tip of his fingers.

And then it hit him.

It was so obvious.

All the possible logical explanations behind these combined with science and a bit too much imagination and expectations.

“Gimme your hand,” he told Komaeda.

“Huh?”

“I said, give me your hand,” Hinata repeated. Komaeda was dumbfounded so he just grabbed his hand, holding it tightly. Nothing happened, it didn't hurt.

“…What are you doing, Hinata-kun?” Komaeda asked carefully.

“An experiment.”

Neither of them were wearing gloves and Komaeda’s hands were as cold as ice, but to be fair he didn't have any body warmth to start with. Hinata pressed both of his palms against Komaeda’s left hand and he wondered if he would have the same courage to do this when he had a stupid crush on Nanami months ago. Komaeda was dumbstruck and sat very still, but did not protest nor order Hinata to let him go.

At the final count of thirty, Hinata finally let go of Komaeda’s hand, running towards the nearest vending machine when he could still feel the sensation of another person’s skin touching his, the shape of Komaeda’s long fingers and how they almost entwined with his when he grabbed him but didn’t. He inserted a few coins and bought a bottle of coke. The coke rolled out from the slot at the bottom and he took it out, immediately opening it and checking the inner surface of the bottle cap.

 

**You won!**

 

It meant that he could use it to exchange for another bottle of coke in a convenient store, but he couldn’t care less about it right now. It had only been twenty seconds so he had another chance to try again. Inserting the same amount coins once more, another bottle of coke hit the bottom of the slot after he slammed the button.

 

**You won!**

 

A mixture of victory and excitement filled his mind and he couldn't help but to smile to himself. He had never been so happy on a discovery ever since a field trip in third grade where he saw a very rare type of butterfly in the woods.

Not minding that the two bottles of coke were freezing his hands off, Hinata headed back to the bench where he left Komaeda waiting. Komaeda looked at him curiously when Hinata beamed widely at him.

“It’s thermal equilibrium,” Hinata said incoherently. “I should have known it when Souda told me, I can’t believe it took me so long to figure it out.”

“…Figure what out?” Komaeda seemed a bit exasperated for some reason.

“Your talent,” Hinata said. “The…luck, it transmits through physical contact. If someone only touches you slightly, they only get the bad luck from you because they didn’t hold on long enough for the good luck to disseminate.”

_He wasn’t an unknown anymore._

Komaeda didn’t reply, and his expressions was almost blank. He didn’t look angry or anything, but Hinata thought that he seemed a bit upset. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I think I should congratulate you,” Komaeda said slowly.

“For what?”

“For figuring this out. Unfortunately, however, _you are not the first_.”

Hinata frowned, and after a few seconds his eyes widened in realisation. “You…knew?”

“Of course I do,” Komaeda replied bitterly. “The school board does, too; that’s the only reason they invited me to attend Hope’s Peak, so that they can do the same experiment you just did.”

_Oh._

Hinata wanted to apologise, for breaking the unknown that Komaeda so obviously didn’t want others to know without notice beforehand. This was also the exact reason why he sometimes hated being so straightforward out of instinct; it hurt people.

“Uh,” he stuttered. “I didn’t mean to -”

“But I am excited, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda said softly. His expression stayed as cheerful as always, but something was off; something Hinata couldn't quite put his finger on.

“I’m excited to see how you will use me,” Komaeda continued, walking a few steps towards Hinata, shortening the distance between them to barely a few inches. “You aren't really taught to be the creative type as a reserve course student, so Ireckon you will do the same as my parents. You see, they aren’t very affectionate people at all, but they always make sure to give me a hug before leaving for important business trips - ”

“I don’t - ”

“- or maybe you’ll hold my hand the way you did just now? It felt nice, I have to say, so I won’t complain if you want to obtain some luck for your finals in March in this way - ”

“Stop - ”

“- no one has ever tried that with me, I don’t know whether that will work, but that will probably be the most disgusting experience anyone can ever have - ”

“ _KOMAEDA!_ ”

Hinata’s shout broke through Komaeda’s distressing blabbering and Komaeda shut his mouth immediately. Hinata, slightly shaking from Komaeda’s deranged statement, grabbed his shoulders and held his fingers tight upon the rough fabric of his winter jacket. Komaeda was still saying something under his breath, and Hinata was at the fine edge of a mental breakdown.

_He didn’t want to see Komaeda like this._

“Listen to me,” Hinata said slowly, looking straight into Komaeda’s eyes which refused to meet his after a second. “I would never, ever, _ever_ , do that to you. Do you understand? Never. You asked me to be your friend, I said yes, didn’t I?”

“Someone as intelligent as you will never give up a chance like this; unlimited luck at your disposal,” Komaeda smiled weakly at him. “Don’t you want to use me?”

“No, I don’t, and the people who think otherwise can go to fuck themselves,” Hinata said loudly, like a proposal. 

Komaeda flinched at his word use and Hinata muttered an apology, slowly letting go of his jacket in the process. Nothing bad happened to this time, just as expected. It didn't start snowing and he didn’t get hit by a fallen tree branch, either.

Hinata was light-headed. He didn't know what to say let alone what to do to console a clearly shaken Komaeda standing in front of him.

“Hinata-kun,” Komaeda whispered after a few moments. “I wasn’t wrong about a certain matter, too.”

“What is it?”

“Apart from figuring out that you are indeed a self-righteous reserve course idiot…” Komaeda said, biting his lip while holding in a half-grin, mimicking Hinata’s unsolicited hand-holding gesture from a few minutes ago. His hand was still cold, but Hinata could only feel unexplainable warmth tinting his fingers, then his hand, then his whole torso.

“I never thought that you would be the one to have the _hope_ within to surpass all my bad luck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally-a-one-shot-but-im-too-lazy-to-write-it-in-one-go is probably gonna end within one or two more chapters. also i want to attempt to write smut


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry for the super high school level late update i was busy with finals and then it was the holidays and i wasn't in the mood for writing but here is a half of chapter five i want to post this bc i dont wanna keep u guys waiting i know how annoying it is when a writer doesnt update forever and leaves you hanging so here it is !!! hope it's not too shit lol

Komaeda disappeared.

Not in a supernatural sense, not really, but he was gone without a trace after the incident in the park.

Hinata dropped his pen again as he was staring out at the window with his mouth slightly opened like a complete idiot, his laptop screen shining a shade of white on his forehead.

_“I never thought that you would be the one to have the hope within to surpass all my bad luck.”_

Komaeda left him with these paradoxical words which he couldn't comprehend. Neither did he understand the reason why Komaeda chose to walk away with him dumbfounded in the park.

After all, he still couldn't understand Komaeda and his strange, but rational intentions. It was just that sometimes rationality and irrationality were just two sides of a same coin, and it was driving Hinata crazy in a way.

The two-week winter break had ended and Hinata still hadn’t seen Komaeda anywhere near the dorm nor the school yards. He and Souda were, again, the only people left in the dormitory building while others had yet to return from their holidays. While sitting on the porch outside of the common room, enjoying the ironic ray of sunshine which casted some of the cold away, he found himself mindlessly doodling on his notebook when he was supposed to catch up on his assignments.

He heard a knock on the glass door leading to the porch, and turned to only find Nanami waving at him. She looked tired, but brightened up with a small smile on her face.

“How was your holiday?” she asked, but Hinata thought she already knew the answer.

“Bad. You?”

“My parents got me an out-of-print combat game, a classic, so, not as bad as yours.” She settled on the chair next to Hinata’s, taking off her scarf in the process. “What’s the matter?”

Hinata shrugged indifferently. “Nothing really is the matter.”

“You look upset,” Nanami commented. “Is this about Komaeda-kun?”

“Why would it be about him?” Hinata snapped, and immediately regretted how harshly his words came out. He had been a bit irritable lately, so even Souda was avoiding talking to him, and chose to fix the central air conditioner alone instead. Nanami was a tolerant person (except to Final Fantasy-antis), as she had very high emotional quotient and always knew when someone was being unreasonable when they were upset.

“So it _is_ about him,” she said, and didn’t seem to mind Hinata’s sour attitude. 

“I didn’t say that,” Hinata argued.

“You didn’t, but you also kind of did,” Nanami replied swiftly. “Hinata-kun, I hate beating around the bush, too. If there is something bothering you, you can always tell me.”

She really was a nice person, alright. At times Hinata thought that he didn’t quite deserve a friend like her. She always listened, she may not gave good advice often, but at least she listened.

“I know I can always tell you anything,” Hinata said. “You always tell me that.”

“And you always keep everything to yourself, no matter what I say,” Nanami said, shaking her head. “That’s something you need to work on.”

“Work on what?”

“Opening up to people,” she told him, and he noticed that it was three minutes in and she still hadn’t given this conversation up for her out-of-print combat game, meaning that she thought this was important. “You know, I always think that you and Komaeda-kun would make good friends. You two are quite similar.”

“You really think so?” Hinata said, simpering and thinking that she was joking. As far as he was concerned, Komaeda and himself couldn’t be more different. “We’rebasically North and South Pole, Nanami.”

“North and South Pole are just two big damn pieces of ice placed at two ends of the world,” she argued. “They’re not that different, either.”

“Okay, that metaphor was really bad, I take it back,” he said, rolling his eyes at the way Nanami used it.

“My point is,” Nanami ignored his statement and moved on. “You need to get over your typical angsty Chapter 4, Hinata-kun, it’s almost graduation and - do you really want to live out the rest of your four months like this?”

“I don’t get what you’re talking about.”

“You might not see Komaeda-kun ever again in the rest of your life, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Her words hit him like a bullet. Not really, but you get the picture.

He tried to imagine a world where he hadn’t bumped into Komaeda that night, if he hadn’t tried to get to know him at all and ignored him like the rest of the world. If he hadn’t befriended him, and developed such a deep emotional complex towards him that the seventeen years of not knowing someone like him almost didn't seem to matter at all. Although he was right next to his best friend and studying in Hope’s Peak, his dream school and where he thought he could find everything he ever wanted, Hinata felt lost, almost as if he was drowning.

And it wasn’t the first time he had pondered upon this question, either. If he had never knew Nagito Komaeda, the immense fear of losing someone would probably forever remain a mystery to him.

“Okay,” he said. “I think you were right.”

“Right about what?” she asked.

“About liking Komaeda.” Clearing his throat and wondering if he should had rephrased his statement better, Hinata dropped his hands on the table in defeat. “I don’t know why, or how, but I think that’s the case.”

He stopped and looked at Nanami, expecting her to laugh or whatever, because he had been in denial for nearly two months while trying to ignore her constant nagging about the possibility. Now that he had faced the possibility itself, it seemed so obvious and he wondered why he never saw it that way before.

Maybe he was imagining the connection between Komaeda and himself. Maybe he was only delusional because he was having another irrational crush on someone he barely even knew again.

“…Oh,” she said. “I -”

“Don’t say ‘I knew it’, please,” Hinata pleaded. As if this situation wasn’t humiliating enough.

“I knew it,” she continued anyway, and Hinata sighed in annoyance.

It sucked because he knew Komaeda wasn’t even making the effort to avoid him while being in the same building as he was. He didn’t even bother to come back to school, or the dorm.

As he told himself, Komaeda disappeared. Or if he wanted to admit to himself, Komaeda was avoiding him.

They sat wordlessly on the bench for a minute, before Hinata gathering his courage and asked her, “Do you know where he lives?”

“Why would I?” Nanami said, raising an eyebrow cautiously.

“Um, I don’t know,” Hinata muttered. “Because you’re the class president?”

“Well, that doesn’t give me entitlement to my classmate’s personal information.”

“Yes, but given that, I bet you do your research on everyone you meet.”

As objectively the best high school gamer across the nation, Nanami never needed to look up for walkthroughs. But with people, sometimes she might need some aid especially when she was the class president of…a group of weird-ass students with very distinctive tastes and personalities. It took her a lot of time and effort to unite them together, Hinata had to give her that.

“Fine,” she gave in, sighing like she was the one who felt personally responsible for Komaeda’s wellbeing for whatever reason. “For the record, I only know his address because he missed school for, like, six weeks last year and they had to send someone to look for him.”

“They sent you?” Hinata asked.

“No, but I did sneak around.”

“Oh.”

Hinata couldn't help but feel kind of appreciative to Nanami’s actions. She might not like Komaeda personality, or didn't know him well enough to make a judgement, she still tried her best to create a bond between the 77-B class and him. Hinata was more than sure that this class would be one of those high school reunion party organisers and everyone would show up no matter what even after ten years, all thanks to Nanami.

The jealously of having somewhere to belong, someone to always go back to always burned too brightly at the back of his mind. Blending in was a kind of belonging, but he never felt he was in place with anyone or anything. He was just there, by himself even when he was surrounded by four thousand other reserve course students.

However, even if he couldn't have that luxury, he wanted Komaeda to have it, at least for the remaining four months in Hope’s Peak before graduation day.

 

***

 

In the end Nanami reluctantly gave him Komaeda’s address, out of pure empathy, bless her soul. Hinata quickly looked it up on the map app on his phone and it was apparently located at a nice, quiet suburban area, where underground could only reach halfway and a shuttle bus trip is required to get to that particular neighbourhood. He called Komaeda one last time before buying the train ticket. As expected, Komaeda left his phone ringing until he reached the voice mailbox. He hung up when he heard the robotic voice telling him that he was wasting his own time chasing after a shadow.

Before leaving, Nanami gave him a stack of paper which was supposedly homework given by their teacher Yukizome even when homework wasn’t exactly a part of the main course curriculum.

“An excuse,” she told him. “You always need an excuse to show up randomly at someone’s house, trust me.”

It took Hinata an extra hour to get there because he got lost and took the wrong bus, which was really misfortunate indeed but it didn’t discourage him at all. The journey was mostly quiet and coldness-filled. The grey and blue sky on top of the outstretched moors of suburbia somehow calmed him, and the colourless scenery reminded him of Komaeda.

The house was a castle compared to the two-bedroom apartment where Hinata lived his whole life. This single detached house must had costed his parents a fortune. It was grey on the outside but seemingly well maintained and fairly new, just like the identical houses lined up neatly across the street as he walked, barely recognising where he was heading until he saw Komaeda’s surname on one of the nameplates on the wall.

Lifting up the garden gate slowly and walking across the path, Hinata noticed that they hadn’t mown the lawn for at least three weeks. Twigs were growing out like crazy and all the withered flowers laid dead on the grass covered with melted snow. It looked tragic, and quiet unsettling. Hinata wondered why no one bothered to clean them up, but decided to ignore it for now.

Standing on the porch and realising that he was now less than ten feet away from where Komaeda was, the courage of ringing the doorbell was sucked right out of him into the cold air. He let out a breath, held in his knuckles like he was preparing for a fight, and pressed the doorbell harshly.

A single note echoed through the hallways inside the house, as hollow as a church bell on Sunday mornings. The blinds on the ceiling windows of both sides of the entrance area was pulled down to the bottom, making it impossible to see if anyone was going to answer the door or not.

He heard a light ‘click’ on the door viewer, thinking that someone must be standing behind the door right now, staring down the uninvited visitor who was no other than himself. Waiting patiently for the door to be opened, Hinata gulped and unconsciously put his hands behind his back, standing with his back straight and expression tensed.

It felt like a century had passed until the door finally swung wide open, and Komaeda was looking at him with a confused frown on his face.

“Uh,” Hinata said. “Hi.”

“What are you doing here?” Komaeda asked. He sounded genuinely shocked to see Hinata when he opened the door; maybe he was expecting a mailman or salesperson, the only people who would willingly ring his doorbell. Nothing really changed about him, except he looked even paler with the snow reflection, and his shirt which fabric was definitely too thin to be worn in late winter.

It wasn't a particularly tough question that Komaeda had asked, but Hinata struggled to reply. “…You didn’t come to school for days, I thought something might have happened to you.”

“Which wouldn't had been surprising at all,” Komaeda said dejectedly.

“Also,” Hinata continued quickly, taking out the stack of paper Nanami had given him. “I brought your homework.”

Komaeda looked at the paper pile with a wary expression. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I think you should leave.”

“What?” Hinata couldn't help but feel a bit agitated. He didn’t come all the way to the countryside just to be told to fuck off right at the entrance. “Why?”

“If you have the power to overcome my talent, you shouldn’t be tainting it by staying around me,” Komaeda insisted. Hinata didn’t understand a word that he was saying, but he knew that Komaeda wouldn't let him in no matter what he said.

“Call the police to drag me off your house, then,” Hinata retorted, crossing his arms when he looked at Komaeda tenaciously. “I’ll sit right here in the garden while you’re at it, don’t worry.”

Komaeda stared at him with widened eyes for a good ten seconds, and out of the blue he softened, shoulders slumped and he started to chuckle. “You really are stubborn, aren’t you?”

While Hinata knew that Komaeda wouldn't let him in, Komaeda also knew that Hinata wouldn't leave without at least having a conversation with himself.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Hinata said, barely managing to smirk, like he knew what he was doing.

“It was a compliment.” Komaeda opened the door again, and Hinata couldn't read his expression. “I don’t have slippers for guests, though.”

“This excuse doesn’t work for me.”

“Alright then,” Komaeda said, giving up his guard. “Come in.”

 

***

 

His house was quite empty.

And it wasn’t a metaphor at all, it was the literal truth; the house was empty, bare with only four grey walls in sight. There was no table, no couch, no TV, no chairs, no nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Komaeda said, noticing Hinata’s stunned glower. “It feels like walking in a haunted house, doesn't it?”

“You don’t have to apologise,” Hinata replied quickly. Usually people apologise to their guests for their house being too messy, and the fact that Komaeda did for the opposite was doleful.

Komaeda led him through hallways after hallways, and Hinata soon lost count on how many uninhabited rooms there were in this house. There was a build-in breakfast counter and exactly three chairs in the kitchen, accompanied by a mini fridge and a microwave, and those were the only furnitures that could be found on the first floor. Hinata couldn't help but wonder how exactly Komaeda survived in this undercoated, standard Ikea sample apartment.

When they arrived at Komaeda’s room, Hinata almost sighed in relief because it was the sole evidence in this house that Komaeda was _living_ , after all. His room was at the far end of the corridor and there was finally the scent of a human being occupying this hollow building. It was quite vast, but not so vast that one would feel lost in it, but the way it was so tidy and spotless did make Hinata feel quite uncomfortable. If he had to guess, this room belonged to a widowed 70-year-old lady whose only activity was knitting on the armchair, not to a high-school boy with wild hair and a peculiar fashion taste.

Komaeda pulled out his chair tucked underneath his organised desk, with only a study lamp and a pencil case on top of it. When he sat down, he realised that Hinata had nowhere to sit himself, and quickly stood up in embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry,” Komaeda said.

“Don’t apologise,” Hinata told him sternly.

“Right, so- I mean, I…” he trailed off, eyes darting at the curtains dangling off the window, covering half of it and blocking the sunlight from himself, while Hinata was showered in the heat of it. “I’ve never had anyone over at my house, ever.”

“Ever?” Hinata repeated, and Komaeda nodded slightly. It wasn’t a shocking fact, really; as long as Hinata was concerned, Komaeda wasn’t the type to make friends easily.

And they both stood there quietly, awkwardly, eyeing at each other while being unsure what to do next. Hinata could feel his hands drenched with sweat from nervousness.

“I thought you brought my homework?” Surprisingly, Komaeda for once did something to put a stop to the silence.

“Yes,” Hinata said. “But you also know that it’s not the reason I’m here.”

“Of course I do,” Komaeda smiled. “You came to ask why I’m not in school, why I didn’t answer your calls, why I chose to ignore you. You’re more emotional than I had thought, Hinata-kun - ” It had been so long since Hinata had heard the same hoarse voice calling him this, and it somehow made him sweat even more. “Even being ignored by an unworthy, lowly pest like me - ”

“No,” Hinata cut him off. “I came here because I missed you.”

Some people might envy his ability to just say things like that with a straight face, while not sounding weird or too over-the-top about the potency of it. And it was worth it. It was because this was the first time he had seen such a raw display of human emotion appearing on Nagito Komaeda’s face. He blinked a few times, his mouth agape, while a fading shade of crimson spread across his pale cheeks.

The result was satisfying for sure, as Hinata watched Komaeda’s imperceptible mask melting gradually before his eyes.


	6. HERE IS AN ART THAT I DREW FOR THIS FIC IM SORRY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KASJGAKJGSKAGSJAHJSHA i AM WORKING ON THE NEXT CHAPTER I SWEAR MY SECOND SEMESTER HAS ENDED WHICH MEANS I WILL HAVE MORE TIME TO WRITE FICS IM SO SORRY


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU where hinata’s confession gets blatantly ignored by komaeda instead :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took like 4 months for me to update a new chapter ... my summer holiday has started so that means i will have more time to write. also im still a bit busy rn so i dont have a chance to read and reply to all your comments, but i will eventually and thank you so much for ur support <3 every comment and kudo means a lot to me and fuels my writing speed

 

Study leave started three days ago and Hinata had considered to just set up a fire camp in the campus library; he was basically living in there, anyway. The main course kids stopped asking him for help, as they knew that without the privilege of graduating from the main course of Hope’s Peak Academy meant that Hinata had to put himself in first priority no matter what, even if he didn’t wish to. Nanami also set aside her game consoles and focused on physics formulas instead of the boss level of Gala Omega, which sure was a rare sight.

And yes, Komaeda finally went back to school like normal. Their homeroom teacher was overjoyed because she didn’t want to go through the whole process of gathering every one of her students just to get them to attend class. Though Komaeda didn’t seem unwilling to do so, at least not after Hinata paid him a surprise visit.

They continued to be friends, like normal. Hinata found that Komaeda was actually a good studier if he had truly put his heart into it. At least he could emerge himself in a 300-page textbook without falling asleep or reading the same line over and over again unconsciously. Sometimes Komaeda would call him ‘reserve-course Hinata-kun’ ironically when he got something wrong. Sometimes Komaeda would also ask him to spell out English terms and trace letters on the back of his hand when he got stuck. And Hinata would try not to smile too much, because it was just not like Hajime Hinata to smile from ear to ear at a tiny gesture someone else did. It was just not like himself to feel so relaxed and placid during a study session.

Pushing up his reading glasses which left two deep, red marks on the bridge of his nose, he turned to Komaeda.

“I’m taking up all your time,” Hinata said, when Komaeda was helping him grade a practice paper in return. “You should be studying, too.”

“I believe that my luck will not allow me to fail so easily,” Komaeda replied, sliding the stack of paper back onto Hinata’s side of the desk. “Besides, I don’t really care if they expelled me right before graduation.”

“What?” Hinata said. “Why?”

“I don’t have any plans for the future, anyway.”

“Not even, you know, university?”

“Nope.”

“Then…what _will_ you do?”

“Starve on the streets and die in a gutter, I’d reckon.”

“Don’t say that.”

“But I really have no idea, Hinata-kun.”

Hinata couldn't help but to sound a bit worried, even afraid maybe. Komaeda genuinely seemed like he wouldn't mind anything that could occur to him without at least a clue what he was going to do.

And as expected, Komaeda shrugged and went back to reading his paperback novel while waiting for Hinata to complete another set of practice questions.

Hinata was tired. Mentally and physically. If he had to sit there for one more second and finish his trigonometry exercise sheet, he’d rather jump off the 13-story reserve course building, and that wasn’t an unusual thought for him at all. But at least he had company with him this time around. He steeled a glance at Komaeda, who apparently had perfect eyesight and would never get bored of reading English classics, eyes fixed solely on the printed text and looking ever so intrigued. It was kind of strange to see him quiet and isolated by his own corner of the table.

Right, the other thing that he had noticed throughout this paired study group was that Komaeda was smart, almost terrifyingly intelligent. The kind of intelligence that would put many elite students to shame when he talked of something other than hope and luck. He could actually understand the underlying themes of Shakespeare’s sonnets for one, finish a two-page calculation in ten minutes, and read the entire text of The Social Contract in French; not that they needed to for the exam, but he was doing it for entertainment while waiting to grade Hinata’s papers.

And that was when Hinata realised that Komaeda didn’t need to be in the fucking library with him. He didn’t need to study for this goddammed exam and could as well as be at home watching TV while eating takeout for dinner or something, instead of sticking around in this hellhole of schoolbooks.

“You sure love reading a lot,” Hinata commented offhandedly when he saw the stack of dusty books on the ground beside Komaeda.

“Before I was seven, all I did was sit in the house and read,” he replied. “Bad habit that I can never get rid of.”

“…I don’t see how it’s a bad habit when it made you practically fluent in French.”

“Being fluent in French doesn’t help with making friends, Hinata-kun.”

He talked a bit more about his old home back in the countryside of Iwate, having to spend days and days alone with a private study filled with nothing but books, waiting for his parents to come back and falling asleep while reading, trying to pass time by emerging himself in fiction. 

“They got rid of most the books when we moved, though. Said that they were a burden,” he smiled weakly at Hinata.

It was when times like these Hinata felt like he was a step closer to learning who Komaeda really was, but then every time when Komaeda talked about himself, he knew when was the right time to shut up before he said too much.

“You know you can, like, go home, right?” Hinata couldn’t help but to remind him when he saw Komaeda picking up another extracurricular textbook, carefully selected from the pile he had been reading through since about ten hours ago.

“I know.”

“You hardly ate anything today.”

“‘ _Reading a book is food for the soul’_.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Well, neither am I,” Komaeda said, waving the book in his hand at Hinata cheerfully, unaware of Hinata’s concern. “I’m studying.”

“Komaeda, you don’t need to study. Just go home and eat.”

“But who’s going to grade your papers if I am gone?”

“I can grade them myself just fine, Professor.”

The light turned dim to save power flickered above them, and it made Komaeda look even paler than usual.

Seeing that Komaeda simply shrugged at his sarcasm, Hinata added, “You know, coming from a person who has been forced to study in elite schools for all his life, you are pretty much the smartest person I know.”

“It’s alright, Hinata-kun.”

“…huh?”

“If you wanted me to leave you could have just said so.”

It wasn’t the first and it wouldn’t be the last time when Komaeda had misinterpreted his words and twisted in his mind into the complete opposite. This made him wonder how much insults and wrongdoings he had been through up until this point, to confuse a genuine act of concern with detest, or anything that he was thinking of right now. He couldn’t still be thinking that Hinata only trying to be nice by hanging out with him, right?

But then, Komaeda was already starting to pack up, picking up books and pencils and putting them into his bag.

“I didn’t notice I was being a bother to you. Of course, who would want a piece of garbage sitting next to them while they are preparing for - ”

“ ** _Komaeda_**!” 

Hinata didn’t mean it to come out as a shout, and Komaeda winced at his sudden raise in volume when they have been whispering to each other for the whole day. There was no one left in the library at 10pm aside from them so he wouldn’t have to be worried about being kicked out, but even if he was it would be the least of his worries.

“Stop, saying… _things_ , Jesus Christ!”

He was sounding a bit like Sonia when she was flustered and forgot how to speak Japanese properly. Slamming his pencil on the table, he shifted his chair so he was facing Komaeda directly.

Komaeda, of course, obliged and Stopped Saying Things. But that didn’t make anything better, either.

“Look,” Hinata said. “I wanted you to leave because you look so tired and…”

_This is not good enough._

“I am worried about you.”

“…Why?”

“Because, you don’t take care of yourself, and you clearly don't care about taking care of yourself.”

“That makes you worried?”

“Of course it makes me worried, I like you! A lot!” Hinata said, and immediately thought of adding, “As a friend!”

_Or maybe not_ , but that didn’t really matter at the moment. Hinata was ready to give a speech on why this wasn’t an act out of pity or whatever, but that did the trick for Komaeda for once.

He looked happy.

“You like me a lot…as a friend?” he repeated, as if it was something shocking and unheard of.

“Yeah,” Hinata said, but it sounded more like a sigh. It did take time for him to get through Komaeda every time, but it was worth it, he thought.

Komaeda didn’t brighten up or anything at the statement, but at least he stopped packing his stuff up. So that was a start.

“Look…when are you going to be believe the fact that I don’t hate you?”

Hinata’s words left his mouth before he could comprehend if this would come out as rude. But again, Komaeda never minded rudeness too much.

“I’m sorry, Hinata-kun, but sometimes believing that someone hates you does make life easier.” 

“You want me to hate you?”

“You will eventually; everyone does. And when you do, I’m already prepared.”

“I won’t.”

“You don’t know for sure, Hinata-kun.” 

“I think I do,” Hinata insisted.

“You don’t.”

For the first time in maybe three weeks, Hinata wanted to laugh. He didn’t know why; maybe it was at Komaeda’s ridiculousness, his ridiculous belief, and the fact that they are having this argument that resembled a conversation between two six-year-olds at 10:30pm in the school library.

“Eventually, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda muttered.

_Scratch that_ , he thought, half-awake and dazed with all the textbooks he had read in the past couple of hours, mixed in with all sorts of emotions that he had withdrawn from since study leave had started.

_I’m going to tell him._

“I love you,” he managed to speak without stuttering. 

Komaeda blinked once, twice, and started to chuckle, like he had just listened to a mildly funny joke instead of a half-assed love confession.

“That was really not a good time for a comic relief, Hinata-kun,” he pointed out.

“But I mean it.”

And Komaeda stopped laughing at once.

“You know, you don’t have to be _that_ nice to me. I get that you feel sorry for me…”

“ _Komaeda_.”

He just said his name, it was not a call for attention, it was kind of a statement, and he didn’t really know what it meant, too. Komaeda shifted uncomfortably in his seat, raising his head to meet Hinata’s eyes.

“ _Hinata-kun_?”

The lights flickered again like lit candles in the wind. Hinata was staring straight at Komaeda, and was slowly coming to a realisation of what he had just done.

**OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD**

These three words rang in his head like a siren and it only made him more sick to his stomach. He could feel his own cheeks burning with crimson and wished for a power outage so that Komaeda wouldn’t see his face right now.

They were now sitting so close to each other Hinata could almost feel the thermal equilibrium coming into place. Bad luck. Good luck. Whatever. And they were, like, in the primal position of kissing right now. All Hinata needed to do was to gather the courage of a lifetime, scoot forward for three inches, tilt his head, and their lips would meet at the most absurd time and place possible.

He took a deep breath and thought that this was up to fate.

And of course during the process he had to knock his bottle over and spill water all over his own trousers.

Yup. That was definitely Bad Luck.

 

***

 

Komaeda gave him a small wave when he saw him walking in the lecture room, fifteen minutes late (but without Starbucks) and tagged along by Nanami, who had warned him the night before that he was bound to oversleep if he stayed up until 5am revising. Hinata tried to wave back, but at the same time his whole body skipped at the sight of him, so he ended up doing a weird gesture that resembled throwing a fishing rod.

The only seats left in the lecture room were the unwanted ones left on the first row, so Hinata had no choice but to sit there.

“What is up with you two?” Nanami tucked at his shirt and asked him.

“What?” Hinata whispered back, trying to focus on taking notes on their extra Chemistry lecture, which Nanami also attended to accompany him .

“Why aren’t you two talking again?”

“We aren’t not talking.” Lie #1.

She huffed in disbelief. “I’ll ask Komaeda-kun if you refuse to tell me.”

“Why are you so insistent on this?” Hinata couldn’t help but ask. Nanami was always the _mind-your-own-business-and-I’ll-mind-my-own_ type of person. She never gossiped in real life and didn’t really have time for interpersonal relationships in general.

“Because,” she said. “It’s your first exam in two days and you’ve never looked so distracted.”

Hinata found himself unable to look her in the eye. “I’m not distracted.”

Lie #2.

“Oh yeah?” she said. “Look at the ‘notes’ you’ve been making.”

She pointed at his lined notebook where he had been scribbling on for the past hour. They were, in fact, literally scribbles and pretty much unreadable.

“I’m tired, okay? Can you not - ”

“ **Hajime Hinata and Chiaki Nanami, please kindly take your lovely conversation outside of the lecture hall, as other students might want to concentrate on examination materials instead of your quarrel.** ”

They both jolted when they heard their names broadcasted through the AP system from the teachers’ microphone, who was visibly irritated. During some point of their conversation, they must had forgotten that they had to keep their voices down because the teacher was now executing them with a death glare. A couple of students snickered at his comment. Hinata tried to lower his head as much as possible when half of his grade turned to look at their general direction, possibly including Komaeda. Nanami sighed and took out her PS VITA and continued playing Persona 4 with headphones on.

 

***

 

The effect of temporarily being distanced from Komaeda had become more apparent when Hinata received his exam schedule from his homeroom teacher, which was morbidly incorrect because he never recall taking Art and they expect him to show up in two exams on the 15th at 4pm.

“I’ll have to go to the administration office and have someone fix this,” Hinata sighed when Nanami glanced at the mistakes on his schedule.

“How unlucky,” she commented. Hinata only shrugged her off.

Hinata took his time to walk across the courtyard to the office building near the football court. It wasn’t a particularly cold day for a January afternoon, so he didn’t bother to bring his jacket with him. He walked along the pathway with his hands in pockets, avoiding the reserve course football players so he wouldn’t interrupt their game.

When he arrived at the administration office located at the doorway of the building, he saw the silhouette of a tall figure, standing by the door where the sun couldn’t reach, at the same time blocking the only entry.

“Excuse me - ” Hinata said.

The man turned around.

“Ah, Hajime Hinata,” the headmaster of Hope’s Peak said. “What a coincidence. Pleasant meeting you here.”

“Me too, sir,” Hinata replied politely but stiffly, though he knew clearly that this was no coincidence.

Jin Kirigiri was a comely-looking man. If it wasn’t for the fatigue that had washed him down throughout his years of being a headmaster of such a prestigious school, he was still in considerable good shape for a person in early forties. He was smiling meagrely at Hinata, who was standing uneasily at the entrance of the administration office.

“Nice weather,” Hinata said weakly, gesturing at the sky which was covered with grey clouds.

“Yes,” Kirigiri replied offhandedly, adjusting the heavy binder that he was carrying in his arm. “Just perfect.”

Hinata knew exactly why the headmaster was here to meet him, and what kind of conversation they were about to have; and he was not at all ready.

The first time the headmaster approached him was in late October, when he was just a bit over 16 and filled with hope of entering such a prodigious school, only to have his hope crushed when he realised it was not exactly what he had thought it would be.

‘Kamukura Project’ seemed attractive at the time, _too_ attractive, now that he recalled. The mere thought of being one of the Ultimates had overcame him for quite some time and he had almost agreed to it. He never told anyone about this, not even Nanami, because he was told to keep it a secret when he was first approached by Kazuo Tengan after his entrance interview.

“You are ambitious,” Tengan had commented with an unfathomable smile. “Ambition is a good thing to have in Hope’s Peak.”

People were shouting across the courtyard when a football player scored a goal, distracting both of their attention for just a second. The old lady working in the administration office looked up from the computer with mild amusement, probably wondering why the headmaster would appear in such an unlikely location.

Trying to not appear so skittish, Hinata straightened up his back and took a few steps forward. Kirigiri was noticeably exhausted even under the bright light. 

“I know it is exam week and I don’t want to take up much of your studying time,” Kirigiri started. “But have you considered my offer again, Hinata-kun?”

Hinata gripped onto the straps of his bag. “Yes, I have.”

“Am I to expect an alternative answer this time, then?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

Kirigiri’s weak smile quivered. “I see.”

There was a few seconds of awkward silence and Hinata pondered if he should say something, but the headmaster then said, “You do understand that you can always change your mind before the last day of the semester, right?”

Hinata nodded.

“A handful of reserve course students have shown interest in the project,” Kirigiri added, looking at Hinata with sharp eyes. “There are thousands of reserve course students enrolling in the Academy every year; we can always find another candidate who is _more suitable_.”

Maybe Kirigiri thought he was foolish to give up such an attractive offer. Maybe he thought that a mere reserve course student as common and disposable as wildflowers by the riverbank would do anything to make themselves stand out more. Maybe he thought reminding Hinata the fact that he was no one special would be the one last push to him agreeing to sign the contract. He paused and waited for Hinata to say something in reply, but Hinata did not oblige, so he went on instead.

“A remarkable student such as yourself must understand the importance of having a symbol of hope in times like these, don’t you?” Kirigiri pressed on. “I know your ambitions, Hinata. You came here to be someone different, someone important, perhaps, and I am offering you a life-changing opportunity to become who you want to be.”

Hinata looked at the headmaster indifferently, his temper rising. “I don’t think I would be doing myself justice if I took shortcuts to get what I want.”

Kirigiri raised his eyebrows. “You would be doing the _world_ justice.”

The saying that ‘genius is 1% talent and 99% hard work’ was full of shit. Everything depended on talent, and hard work almost never made up for the lack of talent and he had learned it the hard way. So when Jin Kirigiri told him that he could have his way with 99% talent and 1% hard work, he called it bullshit.

“Then please do not consider me as a potential candidate,” Hinata told the headmaster firmly. “Because I’m not changing my mind, not even if you threaten to kick me out.”

If he was meant to be a reserve course student, then it was what it was. His fingers dug into his skin harshly when he clenched his fist, staring at Kirigiri without fear.

“I understand,” Kirigiri said coldly, with a tone which reminded Hinata of the headmaster’s daughter, Kyoko Kirigiri, whom he had witnessed mercilessly rejecting a crowd of reserve course boys trying to invite her to the Christmas Ball.

And with that, Kirigiri turned and walked away without another word, knowing that it was just a waste of his time trying to convince Hinata like he almost did in his first year.

“You know,” Hinata shouted at his back, knowing that doing so was extremely impolite, especially at a person who has the ultimate power of kicking him out of school. But he couldn’t care less at the moment. “If there is one thing I learned in Hope’s Peak, it’s that having talent comes at a price. No one would ever sign up to give up who they are,” he paused and added quietly, “ _Sir_.”

Kirigiri looked taken aback for a second, probably amazed by the fact that a student, a _mere reserve course student_ , had the sheer nerve to yell at him like that. But he simply looked at Hinata for one last time, and left from the office entrance.

Hinata had a feeling that this would be the last occasion where he would speak alone with the headmaster of Hope’s Peak.

 

***

 

Hinata threw himself down on a bench in front of the courtyard, with his new exam schedule placed beside him and a can of warm coffee in his hand. He didn’t feel like studying, or doing anything at all. All he wanted was to sit here and dissolve under the sunlight so he wouldn’t have to care about anything anymore.

Sometimes he wondered to himself if accepting Kirigiri’s offer would be a better route for him. At least he wouldn’t have to take any dreading exams anymore for that matter. But he knew that there were far more things that are more important than high school exams in life.

It wasn't even really about the upcoming exams anymore. It really had more to do with the fact that Komaeda blatantly ignored his sort-of-love-confession five days ago.

_“It’s getting late, Hinata-kun, you should rest soon.”_

That was all he got.

HInata groaned and crashed the empty can into a thin crust, aiming and tossing it into the trashcan about seven feet away from him. It missed by an inch and landed on the ground.

_So that’s it? I got pathetically rejected by the Good Luck™ so in return I get a lifetime of bad luck? Is that what it is now?_

He unwillingly stood up from his seat and went over to the trashcan so he could pick the coffee can up. When he knelt down on the ground, there was another hand that reached for the can at the same time.

“Komaeda?”

They both paused their movements at the same time so both of them were just kneeling on the ground, staring at each other in surprise.

“Is this yours?” Komaeda asked.

“Yeah, I missed the trashcan.”

“You have to cherish our school grounds more, Hinata-kun.”

Komaeda stood up when Hinata finally picked up the can and tossed it in the trash, looking rather self-conscious with his left hand grabbing his right arm. He wasn’t wearing his sweater for some reason. Hinata scratched the back of his head and looked to his right, avoiding to look at Komaeda directly because, well, this whole situation is clearly awkward as hell.

“Uh, so what are you doing here in the office?” Hinata asked.

“My exam schedule got mixed up,” Komaeda replied. “I had to ask someone to fix it for me.”

“…Oh.”

_Is it really bad luck just yet?_

Hinata couldn’t help but to think that their tenaciously-built friendship was coming to an end because of what happened that night, when he blurted those words out without thinking in sleep-deprivation. But to his surprise, Komaeda smiled at him and said, “Can I sit with you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hinata said quickly, trying to sound less eager. “Of course you can.”

A couple of the football players shot them weird looks because it was an uncommon sight that students wearing different coloured uniforms would sit together, let alone talk to each other. But Hinata ignored their stares and whispers, knowing that the tradition of segregation of the main course and reserve course was a false promotion of the school to create this faux hierarchy system in Hope’s Peak.

“I’m sorry, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda suddenly apologised, and Hinata felt the nausea building in his stomach rising again.

“Why?”

“I overheard part of your conversation with the headmaster,”

“Oh,” Hinata shrugged, and felt relieved for some reason. “Not a big deal anyway.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“No, I didn’t. Why does everyone think I always get myself in trouble?” 

“Well, you do give out the troublemaker vibe sometimes.”

“Seriously?”

Komaeda laughed, what an audience. And Hinata couldn’t help but to smile to himself. Great, it seemed like Komaeda simply brushed everything off; it was better to be rejected then to receive the silence treatment, at least.

“To be frank,” Hinata continued. “I did get myself out of trouble.”

Komaeda smiled imperceptibly. “So you were being a troublemaker.”

“No, I mean, I was, to Kirigiri, but everything is sorted out now.”

A strange, unpleasing thought surfaced in Hinata’s mind when he saw Komaeda taking off his brown uniform jacket because the weather was getting hot.

_Would Komaeda have liked him more if he was wearing the same uniform instead?_

“You know, I never noticed how thin you are without your sweater,” Hinata said, trying to divert the conservation so that Komaeda wouldn’t have a chance to ask about Kirigiri.

“Really?” Komaeda said, unfolding his arms and smoothing out his white shirt buttoned up all the way to his neck. Wasn’t that suffocating?

“You should eat stuff other than bread and toast everyday, honestly…” Hinata trailed off, realising that this shouldn’t really be his say. After all, he was not really someone special to Komaeda, technically.

But Komaeda didn’t seem to mind. “Thank you, Hinata-kun.”

Hinata didn’t really know what he was thanking him for, but he smiled in return nonetheless, not trying to hide it this time.

“Hinata-san—”

Someone called out his name, a girl’s voice, mixed with quick-paced footsteps approaching them from behind. Hinata felt his shoulder being tapped on. It was Natsumi Kuzuryuu, the only person in his class who could be remotely called his friend.

“My brother said that he forgot to return your calculator…am I interrupting soemthing?” she paused, eyeing at Komaeda who was curiously listening to their conversation.

“No, of course not,” Komaeda assured her, standing up immediately with his bag. “Hinata-kun is only being nice and hanging out with a nuisance like me.”

Again with the Trash Talk.

“Damn, I never knew you were friends with the luck freak,” Natsumi said, smiling virulently. “Are you?”

“Don’t call him that,” Hinata told her solemnly.

“That’s quite alright, Hinata-kun. I’ve heard way worse.”

The frustration towards Komaeda’s lack of self-love had never bothered Hinata so much. What made him ever madder was Komaeda’s indifferent attitude of being called names, being neglected, feeling like it was natural for everyone, including his parents, to hate him, just because of his talent.

“And I’m not hanging out with you for being nice,” Hinata said. “I’m hanging out with you because I love you.”

“What?” said Komaeda. Followed by Natsumi, who shrieked, “ _WHAT?_ ”

“Five days ago, I did tell you that I loved you, right?”

“Hinata-kun, listen to yourself,” Komaeda chuckled, and that somehow really ticked Hinata off. “There is no way that such a wonderful person as yourself would ever feel that way about someone as dreadful as me.”

“Do you even understand what I mean?”

“Of course I do.” He sounded rehearsed, as if he was reading from a script that he had prepared for this one confrontation.

Hinata buried his face him his hands in despair. There was no way that he could make Komaeda understand these words that he had probably never heard from anyone else in his life. Komaeda, on the other hand, was just sitting there stiffly, fingers fidgeting when Hinata tried to figure out his next move.

“Hinata-san…I never knew you had so much balls,” Natsumi, after recovering from the shock, snickered at him without even covering her mouth. “Aren’t you afraid of triggering gossips?”

“Right, Hinata-kun, you shouldn’t let me ruin your reputation in this school for being an excellent reserve course student,” Komaeda added.

Hinata closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “You know what, you’re right.”

He stood up, brushed away the white hair strands on Komaeda’s forehead, took both sides of cheeks in his hand, and kissed his forehead long enough for everyone in the courtyard to see and gasp and whisper to each other. It was nothing sensual, but it wasn’t without affection, either.

When Hinata finally pulled away from Komaeda, Natsumi looked at him for exactly ten-seconds and said, “What the _fuck_?”

“Consider my reputation ruined,” Hinata shrugged, like what he did just now was as ordinary as buying a drink from the vending machine, instead of kissing the notorious Luck Freak in front of the whole school.

Komaeda looked like he was going to pass out on the bench.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> natsumi:
> 
>  
> 
> [via GIPHY](https://giphy.com/gifs/mashable-l3q2K5jinAlChoCLS)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a rly rly short chapter  
> i decided to upload this cuz it's been 4 months since i updated again and im not gonna back out of my promise that im gonna finish this fic so HAVE FAITH IN ME

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i also changed the rating for this fic for the next chapter. I SWEAR IM WORKING ON IT.

Just as Hinata had expected, the not-so-rumor of him kissing Komaeda in public spread like wildfire across the school, thanks to Natsumi and her gossipy nature. Not that he really cared, in fact he welcomed gossips. At least that would make Komaeda understand how serious he actually was about all these.

Komaeda, on the other hand, with another pile of rumour dumped on top of his head, continued to live on his life like nothing had happened to Hinata's dismay. He still hung out with Hinata regardless of the stares they have received and girls giggling every time they were seen around each other. Hinata didn't know if this was actually a good thing or not, since Komaeda wasn't taking this or anything else as seriously as he was.

He still let Hinata drag him around to places, having lunch with him everyday and accompanying him in the library like they were actually going out.

But they sure as hell weren't.

Plus, Hinata still hadn't gotten a proper reply even after one full week.

"You do know I love you, right?" he said every time they parted ways.

"I am well aware, thank you," Komaeda replied offhandedly as always, pretending that he didn’t hear the sincerity and vain in Hinata’s voice.

Sometimes Hinata just wanted to give in and yell in his face 'stop fucking with me’. His disingenuous personality and the ability to laugh off any trick questions that were being thrown in his face only got the better of Hinata in the end.

_Just what is in his mind?_

Hinata had tried to brush the question off when he stepped into the lecture hall, seeing rows and rows of seats with a neat pile of question and answer paper stacked on top of each table. He took his seat and took out his stationary, reciting statistical hypothesis teasing methods in his head instead of obsessing over the same person he had been obsessed with for quite some time; even though he would never admit it.

His head weren’t at all focused on the exams but he subconsciously took out his best pen and started filling in rows and rows and rows of empty lines. All he wanted do was to get it over with as soon as possible.

 

 

***

 

His mother called him today, asking him when would he leave the dormitory and come home, since holiday had practically started after his last exam. But he stayed. As much as he wanted to go home to his own bed, his own desk, and warm home cooked meals, he stayed for an extra week pretending to pack up his stuff as slowly as possible. He kept telling her tomorrow, and when tomorrow came he would change his mind again.

With four boxes stacked on top of each other on the fourth day, taking up 80% of the walking space in his room, he decided that it was time to go home.

His room felt vacant and hollow. Like he had never really lived here. It was weird to move out after two years, and leaving everything in high school behind just like that with two luggages and a moving van that his father rented to pick him up.

The was only one reason to why Hinata didn’t really feel like going home, even if he had been waiting for this day since a few months ago.

The night before he left he decided to eat in the dorm, which was unusual since they had no catering services, and the nearest restaurant where takeout was available was fifteen minutes’ walk away. But with Komaeda there, and the possible last chance of ever talking to him, the last thing he cared for was about shitty food.

“Komaeda,” Hinata said.

“Hm?” Komaeda hummed, distracted from his novel and looked up at Hinata.

“Will you _finally_ go out with me or not?” he asked. “Yes or no.”

Komaeda smiled at him, “No.”

Hinata bit his lip and watched Komaeda leading back on his chair, continuing to read his paperback like nothing had happened.

“Okay, but can I ask why?” he said, trying to ground his saneness.

“I like beautiful things, you see. Flowers, meteor showers, anything at all,” Komaeda replied offhandedly, counting off random things on top of his head while turning a page, still focused on his paperback novel. “So I don't want them being wasted on someone like me.”

“That’s a pretty vague answer.”

“The word ‘beautiful’ itself has a pretty vague meaning, too.”

Hinata paused and thought for a second. _Okay._ _Did he just call me beautiful?_

“Are we here to talk about our feelings or philosophy?” he half-laughed, but it came out more as a huff.

“Don’t get me wrong, I do like you, a lot,” Komaeda said. “But what I’m saying is, Hinata-kun; don’t waste yourself on me.”

“You just won’t stop saying stuff like this, won’t you?” Hinata sighed. “Nobody is wasting themselves on you. If anything, it should be the other way around.”

This argument was clearly going nowhere, because Komaeda stopped answering him again, leaving the silence to linger in the common room when they both ate cup noodles with coke and food from the convenient store.

It was way past curfew time and they were the only people left in the dorm hallway. Most students had either gone home for holiday or were sound asleep in their rooms. For some reason, Komaeda decided that he was stay behind during the last week of the semester, when the only students left were the art kids who still needed to take exams. 

If Hinata had moved out now, even if he hadn’t officially graduated from Hope’s Peak, it would still feel like the connection between him and Komaeda would be cut off. It was kind of like grasping on the last straw, a last hope of being a thing with the person he had been crushing on since six months ago.

He looked up from his almost-empty cup noodle container and saw Komaeda standing up, dumping all the leftovers in the trash bag, which was really only a plastic bag they got from the convenient store.

“Goodnight, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda said with a faint smile.

“Komaeda - ”

Hinata reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could turn and leave the hallway. Confused and slightly flustered, Komaeda looked at Hinata with a questioning expression.

“What’s the matter?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Komaeda’s eyes darted from left to right, looking straight at the television behind them, and the surveillance camera on the top left corner in the common room. Hinata was still holding his wrist, and the warmth from his fingers somehow heated the whole room up even if the air-conditioner was set at 23 degrees.

Hinata waited patiently for his answer. He didn’t want to do anything rash to freak Komaeda out, not like last time. And he was half-prepared to be rejected again.

“ _Yes_ ,” Komaeda finally breathed out, so quietly like he had just confessed something terrible and unheard of.

They were standing so, so close to each other that Hinata could feel the other’s abrupt breaths, the racing pulse and flustered cheeks, which he had stroked with the back of his fingers, another hand still holding Komaeda’s wrists. He was gentle, and he knew that Komaeda could free himself whenever he wanted to; but he did not.

Hinata’s hand cupped his cheek as he leaned forward, so slowly and cautiously and subconsciously tightening his grip on Komaeda, afraid that he would run away like last time. He didn’t know what exactly he was doing, but he went for it anyway.

When their lips touched, he could feel Komaeda’s eyelashes brushing against his skin when he closed his eyes. Komaeda took hold of his arms when he tilted his head, kissing him even harder, lips slightly parting when Hinata’s hand shifted from his cheeks to the back of his head, guiding him forward. They both could come up with a million reasons why they shouldn’t be making out in the common room, where anyone could walk in on them anytime, but they couldn’t care less in the heat of the moment.

Komaeda ran out of breath after maybe half a minute and Hinata immediately pulled away. His cheeks were probably as red as Komaeda’s when they both tried to avoid looking at each other directly. Komaeda was covering his mouth with the back of his hand, with an expression that said he also couldn't believe what they had done just a few seconds ago.

“Uh…”

“I shouldn’t have let you, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda said in a whisper. “Now you’ve given me something to hope for.”

“And what exactly is wrong with that?”

“…I don’t know.”

The timer of the air-conditioner went off, and it started shutting down at 11pm sharp.

“Do you regret it, then?” Hinata asked tentatively.

“No.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Hinata-kun.”

“Huh?”

“Shouldn’t you be taking me to your room?”

Kissing up against the wall that was probably only a few inches thick was definitely not a good idea when you live in a crowded dormitory, but Hinata swore that everyone on his floor had moved out a few days ago and the coast was clear to do basically anything he wanted in his room. Nothing _over the top_ , of course.

Komaeda tangled his leg round Hinata’s, grabbing his waist and arching back against the flat surface to keep his balance when Hinata slipped a hand on the back of his head to keep him from bumping into the wall.

“I love you,” Hinata whispered in his ear while kissing his neck, being careful not to leave any marks on him. It sounded kind of childish, being a fresh high school graduate and all. But at that moment it felt too real. He heard a muffled moan coming from the other, but it might as well has been his imagination.

Minutes later they were both panting , sweating like they had just finished a marathon. The fright in Komaeda’s eyes from just ten minutes ago faded. What was left was daze and tears from the sudden sensation from being kissed so sensually.

“You’re getting hard,” he commented, nudging in between Hinata’s legs when he was still trapped within Hinata’s arms.

“Jesus fuck, don’t do that,” Hinata gasped. The sudden touch only made him blush harder.

“Don’t worry, I won’t judge.”

Komaeda grinned at him when he bent down to pick up his uniform jacket, abandoned at some point after they entered Hinata’s room. He didn’t look flustered at all, which greatly annoyed Hinata, who was practically burning from the inside.

“So, what are we now?” Hinata demanded when Komaeda reached for the door knob.

“Uh,” Komaeda pondered for a moment. “Friends with benefits?”

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?”

“I’ll see you later, Hinata-kun.”

Before Hinata could press on his question, Komaeda leaned forward and kissed him square on the lips, silencing him for the rest of the night and wondering about the purpose of life.


End file.
